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GEORGE  WASHINGTON  WATTS 

IN     MEMORIAM 


..-X.---'>     A-    ,  .,.i.*.J«'B^-.-!»'.       .      .'•*»" tf"»*  *  jaSii^St^ 


<^-UxK4) 


IN  MEMORIAM 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON  WATTS 

BORN  AUGUST  i8,  185 1 
DIED   MARCH  7,  1921 


COMPILED    AND    PUBLISHED    FOR    THE    FAMILY 
BY 

CHARLES  L.  VanNOPPEN 

GREENSBORO,  NORTH  CAROLINA 


"There  is  no  death!     The  stais  go  doKii 
To  rise  upon  some  other  shore; 
And  bright  in  Heaven's  jeweled  crown 
They  shine  forevennore." 


PRIVATELY  PRINTED 
1922 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON  WATTS 
An  Epitome 

HIS  chief  characteristics  were  his  i<een  sense  of  duty, 
his  self-sacrifice,  his  unselfishness  and  devotion  to 
the  interests  of  his  friends  and  to  any  cause  that 
enlisted  his  sympathy.  Many  men  are  liberal  in  money 
and  generous  in  gifts;  he  was  all  that,  but  in  addition 
gave  his  time  and  personal  labor  at  great  sacrifice,  not 
seeking  by  his  liberality  to  private  or  public  charities  to 
purchase  immunity  from  personal  effort. 

He  gave  money  and  personal  effort  botii.  He  did  good 
for  the  love  of  it.  He  sought  no  praise  nor  recompense, 
for  the  consciousness  of  the  act  bore  to  him  its  own 
requital. 

"The  bravest  lives  are  those  to  duty  wed, 

Whose  deeds  both  great  and  small 
Are  close-knit  strands  of  an  unbroken  thread 

Where  love  ennobles  all. 
The  world  may  sound  no  trumpet,  ring  no  bells. 
The  book  of  life  the  shining  record  tells." 

C.  L.  V.  N. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


An  Epitome vu 

By  Charles  L.  Van  Noppen 

An  Appreciation 3 

By  Charles  L.  Van  Noppen 

A  Memorial — Union  Theological  Seminary    ....  13 

The  Religious  and  Benevolent  Work  of  Mr.  Watts    .  18 
By  Walter  W.  Moore,  D.D. 

Eulogy 25 

By  Edward  R.  Leyburn,  D.D. 

Prayer       33 

By  Walter  W.  Moore,  D.D. 

Extracts  from  the  Press 37 

Watts-Beall  Marriage 49 

The  (First)  Watts  Hospital 55 

The  (Second)  Watts  Hospital 71 

Honors      91 

Resolutions — Sunday-schools,  Missions,  Educational  97 

Resolutions — Civic  and  Business 133 

First  Presbyterian  Church 153 

There  is  No  Death 157 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON  WATTS 


"To  live  in  hearts  we  leave  behind  is  not  to  die" 


AN  APPRECIATION 


^ULLY  to  appreciate  the  character  of  any  man  it 
is  essential  to  study  his  environment;  but  to 
appreciate  the  character  of  George  Washington 
Watts  it  is  essential  to  study  his  environment 
almost  exclusively,  for  to  an  extent  uncommon 
even  among  highly  successful  men  he  created  his  environment 
as  he  went  along.  A  constructive  genius  par  excellence,  the 
impact  of  his  powerful  personality  upon  the  State  of  North 
Carolina  has  left  an  impression  that  traces  his  spiritual  linea- 
ments more  faithfully  than  anything  that  he  said  or  wrote.  It 
would  be  utterly  futile  to  attempt  to  write  the  life  of  Mr.  Watts 
by  chronicling  merely  his  personal  history;  it  would  be  equiva- 
lent to  writing  a  life  of  Napoleon  by  confining  one's  self  to  the 
gossip  of  the  court,  ignoring  the  sweep  of  the  vast  events  that 
shook  the  world  beyond  the  sight  or  the  hearing  of  the  imme- 
diate entourage  of  the  emperor. 

For  the  significance  of  Mr.  Watts's  life  is  not  in  his  words  but 
in  his  deeds.  Like  most  men  of  action,  he  was  chary  of  words. 
When  he  spoke  or  wrote  it  was  for  the  purpose  of  conveying  an 
idea,  never  for  the  mere  joy  of  self-expression;  and  his  language 
was  the  simplest  and  most  direct  at  his  command.  Modest  to 
a  fault,  he  would  have  abhorred  the  idea  of  exploiting  his  own 


personality  through  the  medium  of  ornate  discourse.  He  de- 
tested the  expedients  often  resorted  to  by  lesser  men  to  obtain 
notoriety.  For  himself  he  had  little  or  nothing  to  say.  His 
works  speak  for  him. 

But  it  is  impossible  for  an  intelligence  so  powerful  and  so 
active  to  exist  for  seventy  years  in  any  commonwealth  without 
modifying  its  history  profoundly;  and  he  who  hath  eyes  to 
see  can  read  in  the  history  of  North  Carolina  the  record  of 
what  George  Watts  meant  to  the  State.  Not  that  the  man's 
personality  is  thrust  forward  blatantly,  even  there;  it  is  neces- 
sary to  have  eyes  that  see  beyond  the  crudely  obvious  to  com- 
prehend all  that  his  work  meant. 

This  work  was  nothing  less  than  being  one  of  the  major 
forces  in  the  raising  of  a  prostrate  commonwealth  and  the 
construction  of  a  new  civilization  on  the  ruins  of  one  that  had 
perished.  When  George  Watts  came  to  North  Carolina,  the 
State  was  as  near  to  dissolution  as  a  State  can  come  and  sur- 
vive at  all.  When  he  died  it  was  richer,  more  populous,  more 
powerful,  and  more  highly  civilized  than  it  had  been  in  its  most 
glorious  days  of  the  ante  bellum  period.  A  miracle  of  state- 
craft had  been  performed;  and  it  is  the  purpose  of  the  following 
sketch  to  trace  briefly  the  great  part  taken  by  George  Washing- 
ton Watts  in  working  that  miracle. 

PREP.^RATION 

Nine  years  prior  to  the  holocaust  in  Vv'hich  the  Old  South  per- 
ished, in  the  little  town  of  Cumberland,  Maryland,  on  August 
18,  1851,  a  son  was  born  to  Gerard  S.  Watts,  a  citizen  of  Balti- 
more, and  Annie,  his  wife,  in  the  name  they  gave  him,  George 
Washington,  they  unconsciously  bore  witness  to  the  stout 
Americanism  that  was  in  the  blood  of  this  old  English  stock; 
and  in  sending  their  son,  for  his  elementary  training,  to  the 
public  schools  of  the  city  of  Baltimore  they  testified  to  their 
belief  in  democracy,  for  Gerard  S.  Watts  was  a  man  of  means, 
able  to  pay  for  private  tutors  had  he  wished  his  son  to  be 
brought  up  in  that  way.  In  the  public  schools  the  boy  came 
into  contact  with  the  life  of  the  country  as  he  never  would  have 

[4] 


done  under  private  tutorship;  and  it  is  therefore  probable  that 
even  in  those  early  days  he  gained  the  first  rudiments  of  that 
understanding  of  human  nature  that  he  was  to  exhibit  so 
marvelously  in  his  maturity. 

The  war  had  just  ended;  but  one  of  the  few  things  it  had 
left  untouched  in  the  ravaged  South  was  the  renown  of  the 
University  of  Virginia.  It  still  stood  high  above  all  the  rest. 
The  great  universities  of  the  North  had  not  yet  climbed  to  the 
dizzy  eminences  they  reached  a  generation  later,  and  Char- 
lottesville was  still  preeminently  the  place  for  a  gentleman  of 
means  to  send  his  son.  Thither,  accordingly,  young  George 
Watts  was  sent,  and  there  he  was  graduated  in  187 1.  He  had 
taken  a  course  in  civil  engineering — which  may  account  for  that 
passion  for  construction  that  later  distinguished  him,  and  which 
he  showed  even  in  adolescence. 

But  his  labors  as  a  builder  were  not  to  be  done  with  rod  and 
chain,  with  transit  and  level.  Instead  of  the  uproar  of  a  con- 
struction camp  he  was  destined  to  plan  his  campaigns  and  to 
fight  his  battles  at  a  desk  in  a  quiet  office.  Not  immediately, 
however;  for  there  was  an  interval  of  seven  years  to  be  spent  in 
a  contact  with  the  great  American  public  which  would  prove 
to  be  even  more  intimate  than  that  of  the  public  schools.  Mr. 
Watts  went  "on  the  road,"  a  traveling  representative  of  his 
father's  tobacco  business.  Here  he  undoubtedly  supplemented 
and  rounded  out  his  university  training  with  an  education  in 
the  ways  of  men  and  of  business  that  could  not  have  been  pur- 
chased for  any  amount  of  money. 

However,  not  even  the  strenuous  training  of  the  road  and  the 
formidable  task  of  learning  the  tobacco  business  from  top  to 
bottom  could  distract  him  from  attention  to  those  aspects  of 
life  which  were  deeper  and  more  important  even  than  those. 
This  is  evidenced  by  his  marriage  at  Cumberland,  on  October 
19,  1875,  to  Miss  Laura  Valinda  Beall,  whom  the  newspapers 
hailed  in  the  quaint  style  of  the  day  as  one  of  the  belles  of  Cum- 
berland. The  gentleness  and  quiet  culture  of  her  life  was  an 
inspiration  to  all  of  Mr.  Watts's  efforts  throughout  their  forty 
years  of  wedded  happiness. 


Three  years  later  Mr.  Watts  had  completed  his  apprentice- 
ship. Public  schools,  university,  and  the  hardest  school  of  all, 
the  school  of  the  road,  had  left  him  fit  and  ready  in  1878  to 
enter  upon  the  larger  stage  where  he  was  to  play  so  great  a  part. 

ACHIEVEMENT 

In  1878,  in  Durham,  North  Carolina,  the  tobacco  manufactur- 
ing firm  of  W.  Duke  &  Sons  was  struggling  under  severe  handi- 
caps. It  was  directed  by  men  of  genius  and  was  turning  out  a 
good  product,  but  it  was  choked  for  lack  of  capital.  Few  could 
see  in  the  little  tobacco  concern  the  germ  of  an  organization 
that  would  one  day  overshadow  the  world.  But  the  elder  Watts 
was  one  of  the  exceptional  men  of  his  time;  he  saw  in  W.  Duke 
&  Sons  what  others  could  not  see — great  possibilities,  provided 
capital  was  supplied.  He  supplied  it,  taking  in  exchange  a  one 
fifth  interest  in  the  business  for  his  son. 

It  was  thus  that  young  George  Watts  came  to  Durham  and 
that  he  became  affiliated  with  Washington  Duke  and  his  aston- 
ishing progeny.  Seven  years  later  the  concern  became  W.  Duke 
Sons  &  Company,  with  George  W.  Watts  as  secretary  and  treas- 
urer; and  five  years  after  that,  in  1890,  it  became  the  backbone 
of  the  American  Tobacco  Company.  This  was  now  building 
with  a  wonderfully  rapid  progression.  The  little  one-horse  outfit 
that  the  keen  eye  of  the  elder  Watts  had  singled  out  from  among 
hundreds  of  competitors  apparently  of  equal,  or  better,  pros- 
pects, within  a  dozen  years  was  to  become  a  colossus  that  be- 
strode the  world.  No  corner  of  the  earth  was  too  remote  for  its 
representatives  to  penetrate.  No  language  spoken  by  civilized 
men  but  included  its  name  in  its  vocabulary. 

But  even  the  rearing  of  the  gigantic  tobacco  corporation  was 
not  sufl^cient  to  absorb  all  the  energies  of  Mr.  Watts,  and, 
indeed,  after  its  growth  had  reached  a  certain  point,  not  even 
the  major  portion  of  them.  He  was  forever  building.  Rail- 
roads, cotton  factories,  banks,  and  other  enterprises,  almost 
innumerable,  sprang  up  under  his  hands,  struck  root  into  the 
North  Carolina  soil,  flourished,  and  grew.  He  organized  the 
Commonwealth  Club  at  Durham,  and  out  of  that  came  the 

[6] 


Lynchburg  and  Durham,  the  Oxford  and  Durham,  and  the 
Durham  and  Northern  railroads.  He  had  a  hand  in  the  crea- 
tion of  the  Pearl  Cotton  Mills,  the  Erwin  Cotton  Mills,  the 
Golden  Belt  Manufacturing  Company,  the  Durham  Cotton 
Manufacturing  Company,  the  Mayo  Cotton  Mills,  the  Coolee- 
mee  Cotton  Mills,  the  Golden  Belt  Bag  Manufacturing  Com- 
pany, the  Durham  Loan  and  Trust  Company,  and  a  host  of 
other  enterprises. 

But  the  list  of  mere  names  carries  no  significance.  To  say 
that  Mr.  Watts  organized  so  many  companies  and  that  the 
companies  carried  on  such  and  such  enterprises  is  not  to  touch 
the  heart  of  the  subject  at  all.  What  he  did  was  to  help  to 
organize  a  broken  and  all  but  hopeless  commonwealth — to  set 
it  to  work  again,  and  to  infuse  the  despairing  with  hope.  For 
he  did  not  merely  organize  companies;  he  breathed  the  breath 
of  life  into  them  so  that  they  lived  and  prospered.  Around  the 
Watts  enterprises  sprang  up  homes,  and  through  the  Watts 
enterprises  wealth  began  to  flow  into  the  State.  Besides,  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  men  found  in  them  an  outlet  for  their 
energies  and  a  return  for  their  labors. 

Slowly,  during  these  decades,  the  State  began  to  revive. 
Gradually  the  waste  places  were  built  up.  Little  by  little  North 
Carolina  emerged  from  the  blackness  of  her  desolation  into  the 
light  of  a  new  day;  and  as  the  full  light  of  dawn  burst  upon  her, 
as  strength  and  vigor  began  to  pour  at  flood  tide  through  her 
once  flaccid  veins,  the  builder  who  had  striven  so  mightily, 
albeit  so  quietly,  in  her  behalf,  quietly  laid  aside  his  tools  and 
entered  into  rest. 

The  final  settlement  of  his  account  is  between  him  and  the 
Master  Builder;  but  surely  mankind,  looking  upon  his  work 
with  human  eyes,  must  see  that  it  is  good. 

CONSUMMATION 
In  the  city  of  Durham  stands  a  magnificent  group  of  buildings, 
the  property  of  the  citizens  of  Durham,  but  in  a  peculiar  sense 
the  property  of  the  poorest  among  them,  the  poor  who  are 
poorer  than  the  simply  penniless,  the  poor  who  are  bereft  of 

1:7: 


health  as  well  as  of  money.  This  group  is  the  Watts  Hospital, 
open  to  any  man  who  needs  it,  regardless  of  his  ability  to  pay 
for  its  service.  It  cost  in  the  neighborhood  of  a  million  in  cash; 
but  it  cost  more  than  the  money — it  exacted  of  the  man  who 
built  it  a  keenness  of  vision  that  could  see  beyond  the  business 
of  money-making,  a  largeness  of  spirit  that  could  grasp  the  con- 
ception of  stewardship.  A  million  dollars  are  not  easy  to  find, 
but  easier  this  than  to  find  the  spiritual  qualities  which  are 
needed  before  a  rich  man  can  rise  to  so  high  a  sense  of  his  obli- 
gation to  his  less  fortunate  brethren. 

In  an  old  English  graveyard  there  is  a  legended  tomb  whose 
inscription  has  become  famous  the  world  around.  It  reads: 
"What  I  gave,  I  have;  what  1  spent,  1  had;  what  I  kept,  I  lost." 
Many  men,  once  dead,  are,  strictly  speaking,  not  worth  the  cost 
of  the  monuments  erected  over  their  graves,  for  there  is  no 
pocket  in  a  shroud.  But  Mr.  Watts  was  one  of  those  fortunate 
ones  who  have  discovered  the  secret  of  remaining  a  millionaire, 
even  in  the  tomb;  for  his  benefactions  are  his  so  long  as  grati- 
tude springs  from  the  hearts  of  men. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that,  as  his  long  life  drew  toward  its  close, 
this  hospital  became  the  joy  and  pride  of  his  heart?  He  had 
built  huge  factories  and  great  banking  houses  and  railroads  and 
many  other  business  enterprises;  but  those  were  all  a  part  of 
the  day's  work.  He  neither  expected  nor  desired  that  men 
should  know  him  by  those  things.  But  into  this  he  put,  not 
merely  his  genius  and  his  energy,  but  also  his  heart.  It  repre- 
sented more  of  the  real  Watts,  the  Watts  that  so  sedulously  kept 
out  of  the  glare  of  publicity,  than  anything  else  among  the  nu- 
merous enterprises  that  grew  under  his  hands. 

Not  that  it  was  by  any  means  unique.  On  the  contrary,  the 
list  of  his  benefactions  during  his  lifetime  is  long  and  impres- 
sive. From  Durham  to  the  Lutheran  mission  at  Guntur,  India, 
he  spread  his  bounty.  But  this  was  the  thing  closest  at  hand, 
here  he  could  sec  most  clearly  the  benefits  that  flowed  from  his 
charity;  and  it  is  here,  among  his  fellow-townsmen,  undoubt- 
edly, that  he  would  have  preferred  that  his  good  works  should 
keep  his  memory  green. 

[8] 


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It  is  no  part  of  the  plan  of  this  brief  sketch  to  enlarge  upon 
his  benevolence.  Large  donations  to  the  Union  Theological 
Seminary,  to  Davidson  College,  to  Flora  Macdonald  College, 
to  Barium  Springs  Orphanage,  to  the  various  benevolences  of 
his  church,  capped  by  a  bequest  of  1 150,000  to  the  First  Pres- 
byterian Church  of  Durham  and  also  1 10,000  to  the  Durham 
Y.M.C.A.,  besides  |20o,ooo  to  add  to  the  endowment  of  the 
Watts  Hospital,  are  only  the  principal  items  of  a  splendid  list. 

For  his  service  was  more  than  money.  It  was  pioneer  work. 
Never  before  had  a  rich  North  Carolinian  risen  to  so  high  a 
standard  of  generosity.  His  conception  of  service  to  his  kind 
has  blazed  a  path  that  will  surely  not  remain  untrodden.  He 
has  given  to  his  State  more  than  money — he  has  left  it  an  ideal ! 

THE  MAN 

But  the  story  is  not  yet  told.  Down  through  the  corridors  of 
the  ages  still  thunders  the  ruthless  Apostle:  "Though  1  have 
the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  understand  all  mysteries;  .  .  .  and 
though  I  have  all  faith,  so  that  I  could  remove  mountains; 
.  .  .  and  though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor,  and 
though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned,  and  have  not  charity,  it 
profiteth  me  nothing."  Napoleon  also  wrought  great  works, 
and  plunged  into  statecraft,  and  even  erected  shelters  for  the 
friendless;  yet  after  a  hundred  years  his  name  is  accursed. 
George  Watts  might  have  been  never  so  great  a  business  genius, 
never  so  mighty  a  prop  to  a  tottering  State,  never  so  generous 
a  contributor  of  alms,  and  still  have  been  a  man  whose  foot- 
steps no  God-fearing  father  would  direct  his  son  to  follow. 

But  George  Watts,  though  a  giant  towering  even  among  the 
gigantic  race  of  American  business  men,  never  for  a  moment 
lost  his  faith  in  a  Power  that  was  mightier  than  he.  It  was 
grounded  in  him  from  infancy.  Back  in  the  old  home  in  Mary- 
land, under  the  tutelage  of  a  godly  father  and  mother,  he  had 
been  instructed  in  the  doctrines  of  the  church.  His  people  were 
Lutherans,  and  he  was  confirmed  in  that  faith  in  1868,  in  the 
Second  Church  in  Baltimore;  by  letter  he  transferred  his  mem- 
bership to  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  of  Durham,  but  his 

L92 


affection  for  the  old  church  never  died,  as  is  evidenced  by  the 
fact  that  later,  when  he  had  become  a  power  in  the  business 
world,  he  contributed  to  it  I2000  toward  the  purchase  of  an 
organ  and  $4000  for  a  parsonage,  and  at  different  times  he  gave 
a  total  of  $31,000  to  that  church's  mission  in  India. 

It  was  in  Durham,  however,  that  his  religious  life  developed 
to  its  fine  flower.  There  he  became  the  mainstay  of  the  church 
he  had  joined,  and  he  was  chiefly  responsible  for  the  building 
of  the  three  successive  edifices  known  as  the  First  Presbyterian 
Church.  All  of  these  progressive  works  received  his  loyal  sup- 
port, and  his  contributions  to  foreign  missions,  in  particular, 
were  regal  in  their  magnificence.  Missionaries  were  maintained 
by  him  in  Korea,  in  Cuba,  in  Africa;  and  his  donations  to  that 
cause  run  far  into  the  hundreds  of  thousands.  Nor  did  he  forget 
the  fundamentally  important  work  of  his  church  in  the  less 
developed  regions  of  this  country,  for,  on  the  books  of  the  Home 
Mission  Board,  he  is  credited  with  vast  sums  given  to  prosecute 
that  work.  Royally  generous  was  he  also  toward  the  old  minis- 
ters, worn  out  in  the  service  of  the  Lord.  The  ministerial  relief 
fund  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  was  enor- 
mously increased  by  his  benevolence. 

However,  if  there  was  one  phase  of  church  work  dearer  to 
his  heart  than  another,  one  would  not  go  far  astray  in  judging 
that  the  Sunday-school  was  his  favorite.  To  this  work  he  gave 
unstintedly,  both  of  his  time  and  of  his  means.  His  was  a  famil- 
iar figure  at  both  state  and  national  conventions,  whilst  at 
Tokio,  Japan,  he  was  elected  as  one  of  the  vice-presidents  of  that 
great  international,  or  world,  Sunday-school  association  which 
met  there  in  the  summer  of  1920. 

While  on  this  tour  with  Mrs.  Watts  to  the  Far  East,  Mr. 
Watts  visited  the  mission  stations  in  Korea  in  which  he  was 
so  largely  interested.  It  seems  that  some  six  years  prior  thereto 
the  Japanese  had  closed  the  mission  schools  in  Korea  because 
the  Koreans  would  not  agree  not  to  teach  the  Bible  in  these 
schools.  Thus  when  Mr.  Watts  visited  Soonchun,  Korea,  in 
the  summer  of  1920,  the  missionaries  prevailed  upon  him  to  pay 
a  visit  to  the  governor-general,  Baron  Saito,  and  to  speak  to 


him  about  this  matter.  Mr.  Watts  did  this,  and  in  March,  1 92 1 , 
the  schools  were  reopened  with  permission  to  teach  the  Bible, 
and  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  schools  of  the  Southern  Presby- 
terian Church  are  the  only  ones  to  which  this  permission  has 
been  given. 

This,  it  is  true,  might  have  been  called  by  the  Apostle 
"bestowing  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor,"  and  perhaps  also  his 
services  as  Moderator  of  the  Synod  of  North  Carolina  and  the 
perpetual  gifts  of  his  time  and  energy  to  furthering  the  work  of 
his  church  might  come  under  the  same  classification. 

But  there  is  one  test  that  cannot  be  rejected,  for  it  cannot  be 
simulated  successfully.  That  was  the  humble  piety  of  his 
daily  life.  George  Watts  did  not  put  on  his  religion  with  his 
Sunday  coat,  as  is  the  practice  of  so  many.  It  was  an  every- 
day affair  with  him.  Not  that  there  was  anything  approaching 
ostentation  about  it.  It  was  far  too  genuine  for  that.  But 
quietly,  as  he  did  everything,  he  walked  with  his  God  quietly, 
that  is,  as  long  as  there  was  no  need  for  demonstration.  But 
on  a  matter  that  touched  his  religious  principles  he  could,  if 
necessary,  be  anything  but  quiet.  No  slinking,  hole-and-corner 
Christian  was  he.  While  he  was  not  the  type  of  man  to  go  out 
of  his  way  to  seek  trouble,  yet  he  was  most  emphatically  not  of 
the  type  to  step  one  inch  out  of  his  way  to  avoid  it,  if  it  was  a 
matter  of  morals  or  of  religion. 

Yet  he  had  also  the  gentleness  of  the  true  Christian,  espe- 
cially with  children.  He  was  intensely  fond  of  young  people, 
and  although  he  lived  for  seventy  years  he  never  grew  old;  for 
his  heart  was  the  heart  of  youth,  and  this  made  him  a  joyous 
and  acceptable  companion  to  youth,  wherever  it  gathered  for 
innocent  merrymaking.  Utterly  free  from  pomposity,  he  never 
regarded  it  as  beneath  his  dignity  to  exercise  his  ingenious  mind 
in  devising  amusement  for  the  young  people;  and  his  strong 
sense  of  humor  enabled  him  to  stage  ludicrous  situations  that 
captivated  both  boys  and  girls. 

One  daughter,  Annie  Louise,  now  Mrs.  John  Sprunt  Hill,  was 
his  only  child,  and  her  children,  George  Watts,  Laura 
Valinda,  and  Francis  Faison,  were  the  delight  of  his  life.     The 


great  captain  of  industry  was  to  them  only  an  indulgent  and 
delightful  grandfather  when  they  were  small,  the  merriest  of 
playfellows,  romping  with  them  like  a  child  himself;  and,  as 
they  grew  older,  still  their  companion;  especially  did  he  enjoy 
walking  with  them  to  and  from  school,  listening  seriously  to 
the  problems  of  adolescence,  and  gravely  advising  them  about 
their  childhood  difTiculties. 

But  his  ability  to  relax  was  not  confined  to  occasions  when 
he  associated  with  the  very  young.  He  was  keenly  interested 
in  almost  all  forms  of  athletics  and  outdoor  sports,  and,  while 
not  a  fanatic  on  the  subject,  an  enthusiastic  follower  of  the 
national  game  of  base-ball. 

But  the  sport  that  was  peculiarly  his  own  was  golf.  He  was 
an  excellent  player,  and  his  tall  and  well-proportioned  figure 
with  its  athletic  stride  was  known  to  most  of  the  clubs  where 
the  royal  and  ancient  pastime  is  followed,  from  Poland  Springs, 
Maine,  to  Palm  Beach,  Florida,  in  a  surprisingly  large  number 
of  these  clubs  he  held  honorary  membership. 

On  April  26,  191 5,  A4r.  Watts  was  greatly  bereaved  by  the 
loss  of  his  wife.  But  time,  the  great  healer  of  sorrows, 
somewhat  assuaged  his  grief,  and  on  October  25,  19 17,  he  was 
again  married,  and  Miss  Sara  V.  Ecker,  of  Syracuse,  New  York, 
became  his  bride.  This  union,  like  the  first,  was  marked  by 
harmony  and  happiness. 

Strong  in  the  contests  of  life,  far-seeing,  tireless  in  pursuit  of 
an  end,  bold  yet  idealistic,  generous  and  tender,  the  finest  trib- 
ute to  George  Watts  yet  remains  to  be  paid.  Let  it  be  phrased 
in  the  words  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  W.  W.  Moore  as,  standing  over  the 
mortal  remains  of  this  noble  man,  he  spoke  as  follows:  "As  we 
remember  how  he  labored  to  teach  young  and  old  the  will  of 
God  and  the  grace  of  Christ,  and  how  he  set  in  operation  forces 
which  will  continue  that  blessed  work  through  all  the  future, 
we  are  grateful  for  that  great  promise  of  God's  word:  'They 
that  be  teachers  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament, 
and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars  forever 
and  ever.'  " 

Charles  L.  VanNoppen. 

CO 


"It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive' 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON  WATTS 


A  MEMORIAL 

'HE  Board  of  Trustees  of  Union  Theological 
Seminary  lias  suffered  an  irreparable  loss  in  the 
death  of  its  honored  and  beloved  President,  Mr. 
George  W.  Watts.  As  an  expression  of  our  ap- 
preciation of  his  unparalleled  services  to  the 
Seminary,  as  v^ell  as  of  our  personal  affection  for  him,  the  Board 
places  on  its  permanent  records  the  following  Memorial  of  his 
life  and  work : 

He  was  born  at  Cumberland,  Maryland,  August  18,  1851,  and 
died  at  Durham,  North  Carolina,  March  7,  1 92 1 .  Of  a  thought- 
ful and  earnest  nature,  he  set  before  himself  in  his  youth  a  high 
ideal  of  life  and  pursued  it  steadily.  Notwithstanding  the 
handicap  of  somewhat  delicate  health  in  his  boyhood,  he  devel- 
oped studious  habits,  attending  the  public  schools  of  Baltimore 
from  1839  to  1868  and  the  University  of  Virginia  from  1868  to 
1 87 1,  and  so  trained  the  powers  of  a  naturally  quick  and  vigor- 
ous mind  that  by  the  time  he  entered  business  as  a  salesman  for 
his  father's  firm  he  possessed  the  qualities  which  foretoken  suc- 
cess. He  was  a  man  of  clear  intelligence,  sound  judgment,  sys- 
tematic habits,  steady  industry,  and  inflexible  integrity. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-seven  he  purchased  an  interest  in  the 
business  of  W.  Duke  Sons  &  Company,  and  moved  to  Durham. 
Here  it  soon  became  evident  that  he  was  not  only  a  creative 
force  in  the  business  world,  a  public-spirited  community  builder 


and  leader  of  civic  progress,  and  an  open-handed  philanthropist, 
but  also  and  above  all  an  upstanding,  outspoken,  exemplary 
Christian,  seeking  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteous- 
ness, making  religion  the  paramount  concern  of  a  busy  life,  and 
working  tirelessly  for  the  cause  of  Christ.  He  was  always  pres- 
ent at  every  service  of  the  church,  not  only  on  Sundays,  but  also 
at  the  mid-week  meeting,  unless  providentially  hindered.  For 
over  thirty  years  he  superintended  the  main  Sunday-school  of 
his  church,  putting  the  same  enthusiasm,  energy,  and  system 
into  this  work  that  he  did  into  his  business.  During  the  same 
long  period  he  went  every  Sunday  afternoon,  through  fair 
weather  and  foul,  and  taught  a  Bible  class  in  the  Mission  School 
at  Pearl  Mill.  Every  Friday  night  he  went  to  the  same 
Mission  to  conduct  the  prayer-meeting.  It  would  not  be  easy 
to  find  a  parallel  for  such  arduous  and  self-denying  Christian 
work  carried  on  through  so  many  crowded  years. 

No  less  remarkable  were  his  interest  and  activity  in  the  work 
of  the  church  at  large  and  in  all  manner  of  philanthropic  and 
educational  enterprises.  He  was  a  frequent  attendant  at  meet- 
ings of  the  church  courts,  presbytery,  synod  and  general  assem- 
bly, always  present  at  the  beginning  of  the  sessions  and  always 
remaining  till  the  close.  He  was  equally  faithful  and  regular 
in  his  attendance  on  the  meetings  of  the  various  boards  of 
church  institutions  of  which  he  was  a  member,  and  gave  a  great 
deal  of  time  to  arduous  committee  work. 

He  became  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Union  Sem- 
inary by  appointment  of  the  Synod  of  North  Carolina  in  1894, 
was  elected  President  of  the  Board  in  1905,  then  reelected  an- 
nually till  1911,  when  by  unanimous  action  he  was  made  the 
Permanent  President,  and  continued  in  that  office  till  the  end 
of  his  life.  Since  1904  he  had  been  a  valued  member  of  the 
Executive  Committee,  the  most  important  committee  of  this 
body.  During  the  twenty-seven  years  of  his  official  connection 
with  the  Seminary  he  served  the  institution  with  unwaver- 
ing loyalty  and  love,  with  unsurpassed  wisdom  and  energy,  and 
with  unequaled  munificence  in  the  use  of  his  means  for  the 
strengthening  and  enlargement  of  its  work. 

[•43 


It  was  largely  his  liberality  that  made  possible  the  removal 
of  the  Seminary  to  Richmond  twenty-three  years  ago.  Since 
this  move  was  made  the  attendance  of  students  has  increased, 
notwithstanding  the  general  decline  in  the  number  of  candidates 
for  the  ministry,  the  faculty  has  been  enlarged,  new  professor- 
ships have  been  established,  besides  a  well-endowed  special  Lec- 
tureship and  a  Fellowship  of  graduate  study,  the  assets  of  the 
Seminary  have  quintupled,  and  it  has  secured  an  admirable 
material  outfit,  including  eleven  substantial  buildings.  The 
main  building  of  the  group  was  the  gift  of  Mr.  Watts,  and  by 
action  of  the  Board  of  Directors  is  to  bear  his  name  through  all 
the  future.  A  little  later  he  provided  also  the  beautiful  Chapel. 
Nor  was  that  all.  Being  himself  a  member  of  the  Board  and 
of  its  Executive  Committee,  and  therefore  thoroughly  familiar 
with  the  work  of  the  institution  and  its  value  to  the  church  as 
the  main  source  of  her  supply  of  ministers  and  missionaries,  he 
made  repeated  contributions  to  its  permanent  funds.  Thus, 
besides  his  gift  of  $50,000  for  Watts  Hall  and  $20,000  for  the 
Chapel,  he  provided  in  succession  $60,000  for  the  endowment  of 
the  presidency  of  the  Seminary,  1 10,000  as  a  repair  fund  for 
Watts  Hall  and  Chapel,  $30,000  for  the  supplementing  of  the 
salaries  of  incumbents  of  inadequately  endowed  professorships, 
and  $50,000  for  the  endowment  of  the  Professorship  of  Reli- 
gious Education.  His  generous  interest  in  the  Seminary  con- 
tinued to  the  end,  and  in  his  will  he  made  it  a  bequest  of  $50,000. 
The  aggregate  amount  of  the  benefactions  mentioned  is  $270,- 
000.  This  summary  includes  only  his  larger  gifts  to  the  insti- 
tution; it  takes  no  account  of  the  help  he  gave  it  in  various 
other  ways,  such  as  his  contribution  of  $5000  toward  the  pur- 
chase of  the  Westwood  property,  his  provision  of  Professor  Gil- 
mour's  salary,  and  his  annual  provision  of  $3000  for  a  number 
of  years  to  enable  the  Seminary  to  dispense  with  the  fees  for- 
merly collected  from  the  students. 

He  was  the  greatest  benefactor  the  institution  has  ever  had, 
and  this  Board  records  its  profound  gratitude  to  God  for  raising 
up  such  a  friend  for  the  Seminary  at  a  critical  period  of  its  his- 
tory.   Realizing  its  vital  relation  to  all  the  work  of  the  church 

C'5: 


and  seeing  at  close  range  its  needs  and  possibilities,  he  gave  to 
it  frequently  and  freely  of  his  consecrated  wealth,  so  that  to  all 
our  people  we  may  say :  Here  he  made  his  investments  in  living 
voices  for  Christ,  and  through  the  successive  bands  of  young 
ministers  going  forth  from  this  Seminary  he  will  be  preaching 
the  Gospel  through  all  time  to  come.  He  being  dead  yet 
speaketh. 

Mr.  Watts  was  a  great  steward  of  God.  Besides  his  generous 
gifts  to  the  Seminary  he  made  large  donations  to  other  educa- 
tional and  religious  institutions,  orphan  asylums,  schools  and 
colleges,  to  Sunday-school  work,  to  the  great  causes  of  home 
and  foreign  missions,  to  hospitals  and  all  forms  of  relief  work. 
A  specially  striking  and  beautiful  feature  of  his  largess  was 
that  all  his  benevolences  were  benevolences  in  the  literal  mean- 
ing of  the  word.  His  heart  went  with  them.  There  was  nothing 
cold  or  detached  about  them.  Numerous  and  varied  as  they 
were,  there  was  in  them  all  the  warmth  of  personal  knowledge, 
personal  interest,  and  personal  sympathy.  We  place  on  record 
our  witness  that  the  most  valuable  contribution  he  made  to  the 
well-being  of  Union  Seminary  was  the  influence  of  his  own  per- 
sonality. He  exemplified  to  us  the  right  combination  of  busi- 
ness capacity  and  Christian  character.  We  admired  him  for  his 
quiet  force,  his  great  abilities,  the  swiftness  and  sureness  of  his 
mental  grasp,  and  the  far-reaching  scope  of  his  vision.  We 
admired  him  for  his  courtesy,  skill,  and  dispatch  as  our  presid- 
ing officer.  We  admired  him  as  a  preeminently  successful  man 
absolutely  unspoiled.  We  honored  him  for  his  unaffected  hu- 
mility and  modesty.  We  loved  him  for  his  big  warm  heart  and 
his  sunny  disposition.  The  Christian  fellowship  of  the  mem- 
bers of  this  Board  has  become  a  proverb  throughout  the  church. 
To  no  man  who  ever  served  on  the  Board  was  this  fellowship 
more  refreshing  and  gladdening  than  to  him.  The  touch  of 
reserve  which  is  not  unnatural  to  the  wary  business  man  in  the 
marts  of  trade  was  here  cast  off  entirely.  From  the  moment  he 
set  foot  on  this  campus  he  was  unrestrained,  buoyant,  beaming, 
happy  in  the  affection  of  his  trusted  colleagues  on  the  Board 
and  his  trusted  friends  on  the  campus.    He  never  seemed  more 


light-hearted  and  gay  than  on  his  visits  to  the  Seminary.  Little 
wonder  that  we  reciprocated  his  confidence  and  affection  with  a 
deep  and  warm  personal  love.  To  us  he  was  not  merely  the  wise 
counselor,  the  faithful  trustee,  and  the  generous  benefactor  of 
the  Seminary,  but  also  our  dear  personal  friend.  It  is  with  a 
sense  of  wistful  loneliness  that  we  recall  to-day  that  alert  strong 
figure  in  the  chair,  that  beaming  face  in  the  Chapel,  and  those 
genial  greetings  which  for  so  many  years  have  lifted  and  cheered 
and  strengthened  us  in  our  endeavor  to  discharge  aright  the 
great  trust  committed  to  us  by  the  church.  We  lament  the  loss 
of  a  colleague  of  loving  heart  and  large  vision  and  liberal  hand, 
but  we  thank  God  for  the  privilege  of  laboring  with  him  so  long 
in  the  Lord's  work.  This  Seminary  is  the  lasting  memorial  of 
his  greatest  work  for  the  Gospel.  "If  you  seek  his  monument 
look  around."  We  rejoice  that  his  influence  abides  and  will 
ever  abide  in  this  beloved  school  of  the  prophets,  and  we  hum- 
bly pray  that  his  mantle  may  fall  on  us  who  remain,  that  we 
may  emulate  his  consecration  and  zeal  in  the  service  of  our 
Lord  and  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ. 

To  the  members  of  his  family  we  express  our  profound  sym- 
pathy in  their  bereavement,  commending  them  affectionately 
to  the  God  of  all  grace  and  comfort. 


n'7] 


'Few  men  are  both  rich  and  generous" 


THE  RELIGIOUS  AND  BENEVOLENT 
WORK  OF  MR.  WATTS 

BY 

Rev.  Walter  W.  Moore 

EORGE  W.  WATTS  was  a  great  gift  of  God  to 
our  generation.  From  beginning  to  end  his  life 
was  one  of  sound  principles  and  solid  achieve- 
ments and  beneficent  influence.  Born  and  reared 
in  a  Christian  home,  of  a  thoughtful  and  earnest 
nature,  he  set  before  himself  in  his  youth  a  high  ideal  and  pur- 
sued it  steadily.  Notwithstanding  the  handicap  of  somewhat 
delicate  health  in  his  boyhood,  he  developed  studious  habits  and 
so  trained  the  powers  of  a  naturally  quick  and  vigorous  mind 
that  by  the  time  he  entered  business  as  a  salesman  for  his  fa- 
ther's firm  he  possessed  the  qualities  which  foretoken  success: 
clear  intelligence,  sound  judgment,  systematic  habits,  steady 
industry,  and  inflexible  integrity,  so  that  when  his  first  great 
business  opportunity  came  to  him,  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven, 
he  was  ready  for  it.  This  was  the  purchase  of  an  interest  in  the 
business  of  the  now  famous  house  of  W.  Duke  Sons  &  Com- 
pany. When  he  moved  to  Durham  and  entered  upon  his  new 
duties  it  soon  became  evident  that,  like  other  able  members  of 
that  firm,  he  was  a  creative  force  in  the  business  world.  Under 
their  joint  efi'orts  the  business  grew  with  amazing  rapidity, 
passing  quickly  from  its  original  territory  and  establishing  itself 
not  only  throughout  America,  but  in  every  part  of  the  civilized 
world. 


With  the  increase  of  his  means  Mr.  Watts,  like  his  associates 
in  the  firm,  engaged  in  other  large  enterprises,  including  banks, 
railroads,  and  manufacturing  companies.  Throughout  his  en- 
tire business  career  he  was  prominent  also  as  a  public-spirited 
citizen  and  community  builder,  as  shown,  for  example,  in  his 
zealous  leadership  or  active  cooperation  in  all  the  improvements 
that  have  marked  the  civic  progress  of  Durham  and  the  promo- 
tion of  the  comfort  and  convenience  of  its  people.  The  most 
notable  of  these  services  to  his  own  community  was  his  splendid 
benefaction  in  the  erection,  equipment,  and  endowment  of 
Watts  Hospital. 

But  after  all  is  said,  the  most  valuable  contribution  he  made 
to  the  well-being  of  Durham  was  the  influence  of  his  own  char- 
acter and  personality.  The  city  is  not  an  old  one.  It  has  made 
its  marvelous  growth  for  the  most  part  in  the  last  forty  years. 
Its  citizens  can  never  be  thankful  enough  that  during  this  for- 
mative period,  when  their  character  as  a  people  was  being 
moulded  and  their  ideals  as  a  community  were  being  fixed,  so 
many  of  the  men  who  have  controlled  its  capital  and  directed 
its  energies  and  determined  its  business  life  have  been  men  of 
God,  not  only  correct  men  but  religious  men,  not  only  men  of 
sound  morality  but  of  pronounced  religious  faith.  The  people 
of  Durham  have  been  greatly  blessed  with  material  prosperity, 
but  they  are  a  thrice  happy  people  in  the  fact  that,  amid  the 
rapid  increase  of  their  wealth,  their  leaders  in  business  have  not 
been  indifferent  to  the  things  of  the  mind  and  the  heart,  have 
not  undervalued  character  and  culture;  and  that  the  man  whose 
memory  they  honor  as  their  model  citizen,  the  noblest  exponent 
of  their  life,  was  not  only  a  capable  and  successful  man  of  af- 
fairs, but  a  man  of  living  faith  and  pure  character  and  abound- 
ing benevolence — a  golden-hearted  gentleman,  an  open-minded 
philanthropist,  an  exemplary  Christian. 

This  phase  of  his  character  and  influence  deserves  special 
emphasis,  for  he  really  obeyed  the  Lord's  injunction  to  seek  first 
the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness;  he  made  religion 
the  paramount  concern  of  a  busy  life;  he  was  a  tireless  worker 
for  the  cause  of  Christ.    He  was  always  present  at  every  service 


of  the  church,  not  only  on  Sundays  but  also  at  the  mid-week 
meeting,  unless  providentially  hindered.  For  over  thirty  years 
he  superintended  the  main  Sunday-school  of  his  church,  putting 
the  same  enthusiasm,  energy,  and  system  into  this  work  that  he 
did  into  his  business.  During  the  same  long  period  he  went 
every  Sunday  afternoon,  through  fair  weather  and  foul,  and 
taught  a  Bible  class  in  the  Mission  School  at  Pearl  Mill.  Every 
Friday  night  he  went  to  the  same  Mission  to  conduct  the 
prayer-meeting.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  find  a  parallel  for  such 
arduous  and  self-denying  Christian  work  carried  on  through  so 
many  crowded  years. 

No  less  remarkable  were  his  interest  and  activity  in  the  work 
of  the  church  at  large  and  in  all  manner  of  philanthropic  and 
educational  enterprises.  His  relation  to  some  of  these  may  be 
briefly  mentioned.  He  became  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Trus- 
tees of  Union  Theological  Seminary  by  appointment  of  the  Synod 
of  North  Carolina  in  1894,  was  elected  President  of  the  Board 
in  1905,  then  reelected  annually  till  191 1,  when  by  unanimous 
action  he  was  made  the  Permanent  President,  and  continued  in 
that  office  till  the  end  of  his  life.  During  the  twenty-seven 
years  of  his  official  connection  with  the  Seminary  he  served  the 
institution  with  unwavering  loyalty  and  love,  with  unsurpassed 
wisdom  and  energy,  and  with  unequaled  munificence  in  the  use 
of  his  means  for  the  strengthening  and  enlargement  of  its  work. 

It  was  largely  his  liberality  that  made  possible  the  removal 
of  the  Seminary  to  Richmond  twenty-three  years  ago.  Since 
this  move  was  made  the  attendance  of  students  has  increased, 
notwithstanding  the  general  decline  in  the  number  of  candi- 
dates for  the  ministry,  the  faculty  has  been  enlarged,  new  pro- 
fessorships have  been  established,  besides  a  well-endowed  spe- 
cial Lectureship  and  a  Fellowship  of  graduate  study,  the  assets 
of  the  Seminary  have  been  quintupled,  and  it  has  secured  an 
admirable  material  outfit,  including  eleven  substantial  build- 
ings. The  main  building  of  the  group  was  the  gift  of  Mr.  Watts, 
and  by  action  of  the  Board  of  Directors  is  to  bear  his  name 
through  all  the  future.  A  little  later  he  provided  also  the  beau- 
tiful Chapel.    Nor  was  that  all.    Being  himself  a  member  of  the 


Board  and  of  its  Executive  Committee,  and  therefore  thor- 
oughly familiar  with  the  work  of  the  institution  and  its  value 
to  the  church  as  the  main  source  of  her  supply  of  ministers  and 
missionaries,  he  made  repeated  contributions  to  its  permanent 
funds,  his  gifts  aggregating  $300,000. 

He  was  the  greatest  benefactor  the  institution  has  ever  had. 
Realizing  its  vital  relation  to  all  the  work  of  the  church  and 
seeing  at  close  range  its  needs  and  possibilities,  he  gave  to  it 
frequently  and  freely  of  his  consecrated  wealth.  Here  he  made 
his  largest  investments  in  living  voices  for  Christ,  and  through 
the  successive  bands  of  young  ministers  going  forth  from  this 
Seminary  he  will  be  preaching  the  Gospel  through  all  time  to 
come.    He  being  dead  yet  speaketh. 

Besides  his  generous  gifts  to  the  Seminary  he  made  large 
donations  to  other  educational  and  religious  institutions,  to 
orphan  asylums,  to  schools  and  colleges,  to  Sunday-school 
work,  to  the  great  causes  of  home  and  foreign  missions,  to  hos- 
pitals and  all  forms  of  relief  work.  A  specially  striking  and 
beautiful  feature  of  his  largess  was  that  all  his  benevolences 
were  benevolences  in  the  literal  meaning  of  the  word.  His  heart 
went  with  them.  There  was  nothing  cold  or  detached  about 
them.  Numerous  and  varied  as  they  were,  there  was  in  them 
all  the  warmth  of  personal  knowledge,  personal  interest,  and 
personal  sympathy.  It  was  so  with  his  gifts  to  the  Watts  Hos- 
pital, to  Union  Seminary,  to  Davidson  College,  to  Flora  Mac- 
donald  College,  to  Barium  Springs  Orphanage,  to  Lees-McRae 
Institute,  to  the  causes  of  ministerial  relief,  home  missions,  and 
foreign  missions.  Take  the  last-named  cause  for  illustration. 
Not  only  did  he  make  an  annual  contribution  of  $13,000  for 
many  years  for  the  support  of  the  missionaries  of  the  Soonchun 
station  in  Korea,  eventually  making  it  permanent  by  an  en- 
dowment fund  of  $256,000;  not  only  did  he  support  mission- 
aries in  Cuba  and  Africa,  eventually  creating  an  endowment  for 
the  latter  of  $48,000;  but  to  all  the  missionaries  he  was  a  loyal 
and  sympathetic  friend,  especially  those  whom  he  supported, 
invariably  and  promptly  answering  their  letters,  and  aflfection- 
ately  interested  in  all  that  concerned  them. 


No  part  of  the  church's  work  appealed  to  him  more  strongly 
or  engaged  more  of  his  time  and  thought  and  personal  effort 
than  that  of  the  Sunday-school.  He  was  enthusiastic  and  in- 
cessant in  his  activities  as  leader,  organizer,  teacher,  and 
superintendent.  His  contributions  to  Sunday-school  equip- 
ment and  support  were  frequent  and  free-handed,  such  as  the 
substantial  and  convenient  building  which  he  erected  for  the 
Sunday-school  of  his  home  church  at  Durham  and  the  endow- 
ment he  provided  for  the  department  of  Sunday-school  Teacher 
Training  at  Union  Seminary,  The  last  great  religious  gath- 
ering he  attended  was  the  World's  Sunday-school  Convention 
at  Tokio,  Japan,  during  the  summer  of  1920,  and  his  last  public 
address  was  the  account  he  gave  of  that  convention  to  his  own 
school  at  Durham. 


C^O 


EULOGY 

BY  REV.  EDWARD  R.   LEYBURN,  D.D. 


EULOGY 

DELIVERED  AT  THE  FUNERAL  OF  MR.  GEORGE  W.  WATTS 
BY  REV.  EDV^/ARD  R.  LEYBURN,  D.D. 

For  seventeen  and  a  half  years  his  pastor 

FEEL  very  much  more  like  sitting  beside  the 
bereaved  family  to-day,  mourning  with  them 
over  the  loss  of  this  dear  friend  and  brother, 
than  standing  here  undertaking  to  speak  about 
him.  The  feeling  of  my  heart  and  the  heart  of 
this  vast  assemblage  is  voiced  by  the  Psalmist  in  the  Twelfth 
Psalm  and  first  verse:  "Help,  Lord;  for  the  godly  man  ceaseth; 
for  the  faithful  fail  from  among  the  children  of  men."  God- 
liness and  faithfulness :  these  are  the  two  words  which  best  sum 
up  Mr.  Watts's  life  and  character  and  career. 

Gifted  with  unusual  talents  and  abilities  and  resources  and 
influence,  he  used  them  all  faithfully  for  the  glory  of  God  and 
the  blessing  of  his  fellow-man.  Those  who  were  not  personally 
acquainted  with  Mr.  Watts  admired  him  for  his  great  liberality, 
and  he  was  known  and  honored  from  one  end  of  our  land  to  the 
other  for  his  large  and  numerous  gifts  to  the  church  and  its  edu- 
cational institutions,  and  to  philanthropy.  But  those  of  us  who 
knew  him  intimately  admired  him  most  because  of  the  larger 
and  richer  gift  of  himself,  his  time,  his  interest,  his  energy  to 
the  cause  of  Christ. 

He  put  God  and  the  things  of  His  kingdom  as  the  first  con- 
cerns of  his  life.  This  is  illustrated  by  an  incident  which  oc- 
curred a  few  years  ago.  One  of  the  large  business  corporations 
with  which  he  was  connected  was  passing  through  a  critical 
period  in  its  history,  and  there  was  an  important  meeting  of  its 

[253 


board  of  directors  to  be  held  in  New  York  City  on  a  certain 
date.  On  that  same  date  there  was  to  be  a  meeting  of  the 
board  of  directors  of  Union  Theological  Seminary,  of  which  Mr. 
Watts  had  been  a  member  and  President  for  years.  Without  a 
moment's  hesitation  he  decided  to  go  to  the  Richmond  meeting 
and  look  after  the  interests  of  the  Seminary,  and  left  his  large 
business  interests  to  be  looked  after  by  others. 

Mr.  Watts  loved  his  church,  and  showed  his  love  and  loyalty 
by  being  present  at  every  service,  not  only  on  Sundays,  but  also 
at  the  mid-week  prayer-meeting,  unless  providentially  pre- 
vented from  being  there.  In  fact,  he  is  the  only  man  whom  I 
have  ever  urged  not  to  come  to  church  so  much,  for  I  felt  that 
after  superintending  the  Sunday-school  in  the  morning,  throw- 
ing his  whole  soul  and  strength  into  it,  as  he  did  with  everything 
he  undertook,  then  attending  the  morning  preaching  service, 
then  going  down  to  the  Pearl  Mill  Mission  and  teaching  a  Bible 
class  there  in  the  afternoon,  he  ought  not  to  come  out  to  church 
again  at  night.  But  when  I  remonstrated  with  him  and  urged 
him  to  take  more  care  of  himself,  he  would  reply  that  he  needed 
the  worship  for  his  own  spiritual  good,  and  that  as  a  member 
and  officer  of  the  church  he  felt  that  his  influence  and  example 
might  help  to  make  others  more  loyal  and  faithful  to  the  church 
and  its  services. 

He  was  the  best  Sunday-school  superintendent  with  whom  1 
have  ever  been  associated,  putting  his  business  energy  and  en- 
thusiasm and  system  into  its  work,  and  at  the  same  time  keep- 
ing the  spiritual  aims  and  nature  of  the  work  uppermost  and 
foremost,  and  impressing  his  teachers  continually  with  the  fact 
that  their  great  business  was  to  lead  souls  to  Christ  and  train 
them  for  His  service.  In  addition  to  superintending  the  main 
Sunday-school  of  his  church  for  over  thirty  years  with  marked 
ability  and  success,  he  went  down  every  Sunday  afternoon  dur- 
ing all  those  years  to  the  Pearl  Mill  Mission,  through  fair 
weather  and  through  storm,  through  heat  and  through  cold,  to 
teach  a  Bible  class  in  that  Mission.  Thus  this  great  man,  who 
was  closely  identified  with  the  World's  Sunday-school  Associa- 
tion and  a  member  of  the  International  Committee,  and  who 


was  so  highly  esteemed  by  that  body  that  they  held  a  special 
prayer-meeting  for  him  during  his  illness,  devoted  his  own 
precious  time  and  strength  through  all  these  years  to  teaching  a 
class  in  a  mission  Sunday-school.  This  was  characteristic  of 
the  man,  and  one  of  the  reasons  why  he  was  so  greatly  beloved 
by  all  who  knew  him,  of  every  class  and  condition.  In  addition 
to  teaching  this  mission  school  every  Sunday  afternoon,  he  and 
Mr.  Leo  D.  Heartt,  another  saint  of  God  who  has  passed  to  his 
reward,  went  down  every  Friday  night  for  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  to  conduct  the  prayer-meeting  in  this  same  Mission,  keep- 
ing up  this  work  until  the  Mission  secured  a  pastor  of  its  own 
who  took  charge  of  that  service.  Those  of  us  who  have  heard 
him  teach  his  Bible  class  and  lead  these  prayer-meetings  re- 
member with  what  clearness  and  force  and  aptness  of  illustra- 
tion he  applied  the  great  truths  of  God's  word  to  the  present-day 
needs  of  those  to  whom  he  spoke.  Often  during  the  pastor's 
absence  from  home  he  conducted  the  mid-week  prayer-meeting 
of  his  church,  and  these  meetings  were  always  times  of  spiritual 
refreshing  to  all  who  attended  them. 

Mr.  Watts  was  a  very  busy  man,  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
let  it  be  known  that  he  had  no  time  to  waste,  and  yet  I  never 
knew  him  to  be  too  busy  or  too  much  engrossed  with  business 
to  be  willing  to  stop  and  have  a  conference  with  his  pastor  or 
any  of  the  representatives  of  the  church's  work  who  wanted 
to  consult  with  him  about  the  interests  of  the  kingdom.  He 
was  a  modest  man,  who  made  no  parade  and  desired  no  pub- 
licity about  what  he  was  doing  and  giving.  He  gave  not  only 
with  liberality  but  with  cheerfulness,  esteeming  it  a  privilege 
to  use  what  God  had  entrusted  to  him  for  the  advancement  of 
His  kingdom.  And  yet  he  never  gave  carelessly  or  indiscrimi- 
nately, but  as  a  faithful  steward  of  God  he  examined  carefully 
into  the  merits  of  every  appeal  that  was  made  to  him,  and  if  the 
cause  did  not  commend  itself  to  his  judgment,  no  amount  of 
argument  or  appeal  could  induce  him  to  give  a  penny  to  it. 

I  shall  not  undertake  to  enumerate  to-day  the  different  activ- 
ities of  the  church  at  large  with  which  Mr.  Watts  was  connected 
as  a  director.    A  very  large  part  of  the  time  of  his  busy  life  was 


devoted  to  looking  after  the  work  of  the  church  and  its  institu- 
tions. The  great  number  of  representatives  here  to-day  from 
the  different  educational  institutions  of  the  church  and  its  dif- 
ferent executive  departments,  in  addition  to  the  representatives 
from  the  numerous  business  enterprises  and  civic  organiza- 
tions to  which  he  belonged,  witness  to  the  high  esteem  in  which 
he  was  held,  and  the  great  value  which  was  placed  upon  his 
counsel  and  advice. 

Mr.  Watts  needs  no  material  monument  to  perpetuate  his 
memory,  for  he  will  continue  to  live  on  and  exert  his  influence 
in  the  lives  which  he  has  blessed  and  in  the  hearts  which  he  has 
cheered.  Through  the  lips  of  the  ministers  who  received  their 
training  through  his  liberality,  through  the  many  missionaries 
in  foreign  lands  for  whose  support  he  has  made  perpetual  pro- 
vision, and  through  his  many  home  mission  workers  in  the  des- 
titute parts  of  our  own  country,  he  will  continue  to  preach  the 
blessed  Gospel  of  God's  dear  Son  to  untold  multitudes  as  the 
years  go  by.  In  the  buildings  which  he  has  erected  at  Union 
Seminary  and  Davidson  College  and  Barium  Springs  and  the 
endowment  which  he  has  provided  for  these  and  many  other 
institutions  of  learning,  he  is  continuing  to  prepare  men  and 
women  for  the  service  of  God.  Through  his  large  gifts  to  the 
Endowment  Fund  of  Ministerial  Relief  he  will  continue  to 
bring  joy  and  comfort  and  cheer  to  the  hearts  of  God's  aged 
and  infirm  servants  worn  out  in  the  work  of  the  Master,  and  to 
bless  the  widows  and  little  orphan  children  of  those  who  have 
been  called  to  their  reward.  In  the  beautiful  and  imposing 
group  of  buildings  which  he  has  erected  and  endowed  on  the 
outskirts  of  this  city  he  will  continue  the  beautiful  ministry  of 
Him  who  went  about  doing  good,  healing  the  sick,  and  relieving 
the  sorrowing  and  suffering  children  of  men.  No  other  man 
whom  we  have  ever  known  has  so  many  worthy  monuments  to 
perpetuate  his  memory  and  to  carry  on  his  work  of  glorifying 
God  in  blessing  mankind. 

I  shall  not,  of  course,  undertake  to  speak  in  detail  on  this 
occasion  of  Mr.  Watts's  beautiful  life  in  the  home.  It  is  enough 
to  say  that  he  was  a  perfect  Christian  gentleman,  who  lived  his 

[28] 


religion  in  all  the  relations  of  life  seven  days  in  the  week.  Con- 
sequently those  who  knew  him  best  and  who  associated  with 
him  most  intimately  appreciated  him  most  fully  and  loved  him 
most  devotedly. 

May  the  God  of  all  grace  and  comfort,  the  blessed  Saviour, 
the  Elder  Brother,  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Comforter,  the  Triune 
God  of  the  Covenant,  comfort  and  cheer  and  sustain  these  dear 
ones  till  they,  too,  reach  the  Father's  House  of  Many  Mansions, 
and  are  reunited  with  the  loved  ones,  so  many  of  whom  have 
gone  up  in  recent  years  from  this  beautiful  hilltop  to  walk  with 
the  Saviour  and  with  each  other  on  the  hilltops  of  eternal  glory. 

No  other  preeminently  successful  man  of  our  time  has  exem- 
plified more  strikingly  than  Mr.  Watts  the  right  combination 
of  business  capacity  and  Christian  character;  and  he  has  set  in 
operation  forces  which  will  carry  on  his  beneficent  influence  till 
the  last  syllable  of  recorded  time. 


n^Q] 


PRAYER 

BY  REV.  WALTER  W.  MOORE 


PRAYER 

AT  THE  FUNERAL  OF  MR.  GEORGE  W.  WATTS 
BY  REV.  WALTER  W.  MOORE 

jLMIGHTY  GOD,  our  heavenly  Father,  Who 
alone  art  the  Author  and  Disposer  of  our  lives, 
from  Whom  our  spirits  come  and  unto  Whom 
they  return,  we  acknowledge  Thy  sovereign 
power  and  right  both  to  give  and  take  away  as 
seemeth  good  to  Thee;  and  we  pray  that  unto  all  Thy  righteous 
dealings  we  may  yield  ourselves  with  due  resignation  and  pa- 
tience, being  assured  that  Thy  wisdom  never  errs  and  Thy  love 
never  fails.  Remembering  to-day  all  Thy  love  to  us  in  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  and  all  the  promises  of  Thy  grace,  we  would  resign 
ourselves  into  Thy  hands,  to  be  taught  and  sanctified  by  Thee, 
that  while  we  mourn  we  may  not  murmur  nor  faint  under  Thy 
chastening,  but  hold  fast  the  assurance  of  Thy  mercy  and  the 
blessed  hope  of  everlasting  life  through  Him  Who  died  and 
rose  again,  even  Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord.  We  pray  Thee  for  His 
sake  to  enable  us  so  to  heed  Thy  holy  word  that  we  through 
patience  and  comfort  of  the  Scriptures  may  have  hope,  and  to 
so  fill  our  hearts  with  Thy  love  that  we  may  cleave  more  closely 
to  Thee  Who  bringest  life  out  of  death  and  Who  canst  turn  our 
grief  into  eternal  joy. 

We  bless  Thy  name  for  all  those  who  have  died  in  the  Lord 
and  who  now  rest  from  their  labors,  having  received  the  end  of 
their  faith,  even  the  salvation  of  their  souls.  We  thank  Thee 
for  every  life  of  living  faith  and  loving  sympathy  and  helpful 

[33] 


service.  Especially  we  call  to  remembrance  Th}'  loving-kind- 
ness to  this  Thy  servant.  For  all  Thy  goodness  that  withheld 
not  his  portion  in  the  joys  of  this  earthly  life,  and  for  Thy  guid- 
ing hand  along  the  way  of  his  pilgrimage,  we  give  Thee  thanks 
and  praise.  Most  of  all  we  bless  Thee  for  Thy  grace  that  kin- 
dled in  his  heart  a  living  faith  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
made  his  life  a  benediction  to  our  time.  We  magnify  Thy  holy 
name  for  the  assurance  that,  his  trials  being  ended  and  death 
passed,  with  all  the  dangers  and  difficulties  of  this  mortal  life, 
his  spirit  is  at  home  and  at  peace  in  our  Father's  house.  Grant, 
O  Lord,  that  we  who  rejoice  in  the  triumph  of  Thy  saints  may 
profit  by  their  example,  that  becoming  followers  of  their  faith 
and  patience  we,  too,  may  enter  into  the  inheritance  incorrupti- 
ble and  undefiled  and  that  fadeth  not  away;  through  Jesus 
Christ,  our  Lord. 

When  we  remember  the  strong  and  beautiful  and  beneficent 
life  of  Thy  servant,  in  the  home,  in  the  church,  in  the  com- 
munity, in  the  State,  in  the  world  at  large,  how  he  adorned  the 
doctrine  of  God,  our  Saviour,  how  he  witnessed  and  worked 
for  Thee,  how  he  let  his  light  so  shine  that  men  glorified  our 
Father  in  heaven,  how  he  taught  Thy  truth  and  lived  it,  how 
we  loved  him  for  his  loving  heart  and  leaned  on  him  for  counsel 
and  strength,  it  is  inevitable  that  we  should  grieve  for  the  great 
loss  we  have  suffered.  We  mourn  before  Thee  together,  O  Lord 
— the  members  of  his  immediate  family  who  knew  him  best  and 
loved  him  most,  the  wide  circle  of  relatives  whose  affectionate 
intimacy  with  him  has  extended  through  years,  the  large  num- 
ber of  personal  friends  whom  he  had  long  honored  with  his 
confidence  and  affection,  his  associates  in  business,  his  co-work- 
ers in  the  community,  the  teachers  and  pupils  of  his  Sunday- 
schools,  his  fellow-members  in  the  church,  his  fellow-citizens 
in  the  State,  hundreds  of  people  also  who  never  saw  him  but 
who  loved  him  for  his  great  heart  and  his  Christian  benevolence, 
boys  and  girls  in  orphans'  homes,  aged  and  indigent  servants 
of  God,  relieved,  comforted,  and  cheered  by  his  munificence, 
young  men  and  young  women  of  vigor  and  promise  in  schools 
and  colleges,  missionaries  of  the  Cross  in  distant  lands,  patients 

[34:1 


in  hospitals — all  mourn  to-day  the  departure  from  this  world 
of  one  of  God's  noblemen. 

But  we  bless  Thee  that  while  we  mourn  we  may  also  rejoice. 
We  rejoice  in  all  the  memories  of  such  a  life  and  in  its  blessed 
influence  which  abides  and  will  ever  abide.  We  recognize  the 
fact  that  the  gift  of  such  a  man  to  our  generation  is  a  blessing 
from  the  hand  of  God  that  calls  for  profound  and  abiding  grati- 
tude. We  recognize  in  him  a  fulfilment  of  the  ancient  promise 
of  Thy  word  that  "a  man  shall  be  as  an  hiding  place  from  the 
wind  and  a  covert  from  the  tempest,  as  rivers  of  water  in  a  dry 
place,  as  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land."  In  the 
strength  of  his  character  and  the  kindness  of  his  heart  he  was 
like  a  great  rock  affording  shelter  to  many  from  the  sweep  of 
calamity.  In  the  outflow  of  his  benevolence  he  was  like  rivers 
of  water  in  a  dry  place.  We  bless  Thee  that  the  streams  of  it 
have  not  only  flowed  copiously  through  his  own  community, 
but  that  they  have  gone  far  and  wide  through  this  land  and 
other  lands  and  even  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  pure,  refreshing, 
life-giving.  We  thank  God  for  a  man  who  was  both  a  rock  and 
a  river,  both  a  shelter  and  a  source  of  fertility. 

We  recognize  gratefully  Thy  goodness  in  giving  to  this  com- 
munity during  its  formative  period,  when  its  character  as  a 
people  was  being  moulded  and  its  ideals  as  a  community  were 
being  fixed,  a  leader  who,  with  all  his  sagacity  and  skill  and 
success  in  practical  afi'airs,  remained  throughout  a  Christian 
idealist,  high-souled,  golden-hearted,  sympathetic,  benevolent, 
devout.  As  we  remember  how  he  labored  to  teach  young  and 
old  the  will  of  God  and  the  grace  of  Christ,  and  how  he  set  in 
operation  forces  which  will  continue  that  blessed  work  through 
all  the  future,  we  call  to  mind  that  great  promise  of  God's  word: 
"They  that  be  teachers  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  fir- 
mament, and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars 
for  ever  and  ever." 

And  so,  with  hearts  subdued  and  sorrowful,  yet  believing,  we 
give  this  great  life  back  to  God,  thanking  Thee  for  all  that  it 
has  meant  to  us,  and  praying  of  Thee  that  comfort  in  our 
bereavement  which  Thou  alone  canst  give.    Lay  Thy  hand  of 

D5] 


healing  on  all  these  stricken  hearts.  Speak  to  them  as  to  Thy 
disciples  of  old,  "Let  not  your  hearts  be  troubled.  In  my 
Father's  house  are  many  mansions.  1  go  to  prepare  a  place  for 
you.  And  if  I  go  and  prepare  a  place  for  you,  I  will  come  again 
and  receive  you  unto  Myself,  that  where  I  am  there  ye  may  be 
also."  Blessed  be  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
who,  according  to  His  abundant  mercy,  hath  begotten  us  again 
unto  a  living  hope  by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the 
dead.  Now  the  God  of  peace  that  brought  again  from  the  dead 
our  Lord  Jesus,  that  great  Shepherd  of  the  sheep,  through  the 
blood  of  the  everlasting  covenant,  make  you  perfect  in  every 
good  work  to  do  His  will,  working  in  you  that  which  is  well 
pleasing  in  His  sight,  through  Jesus  Christ,  to  whom  be  glory 
for  ever  and  ever.     Amen. 


[36] 


EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  PRESS 


>vv\ 


VPTA 


'There  is  a  prince  and  a  great  man  j alien  this  day  in  Israel" 


lEORGE  WASHINGTON  WATTS,  aged  seventy, 
one  of  the  South's  great  business  men  and 
philanthropists,  died  at  his  home  on  South  Duke 
Street,  this  city,  yesterday  morning  at  10.25 
o'clock.  His  death  was  due  to  cancer  of  the 
stomach,  with  which  he  had  suffered  for  something  like  a  year. 
He  was  actively  connected  with  a  large  number  of  business 
enterprises,  including  banks,  railroads,  and  manufacturing 
plants.  He  has  given  of  his  finances  without  stint  to  the  cause 
of  religion  and  education,  in  addition  to  which  he  did  many 
deeds  of  charity  of  which  the  world  never  knew.  He  was  the 
State's  largest  individual  taxpayer  and  wealthiest  citizen. 

Mr.  Watts  had  been  in  ill  health  for  the  past  year.  In  the  first 
stages  of  his  illness  he  went  to  a  hospital  in  Baltimore  for  treat- 
ment and  an  operation.  After  some  months  of  treatment  he 
returned  home  with  improved  health.  His  physicians,  however, 
sent  him  to  Europe  in  the  hope  of  complete  health  restoration. 
Late  last  summer  Mr.  Watts  sailed  for  Europe.  He  toured 
through  many  countries,  but  more  especially  in  the  Orient, 
where  he  had  invested  large  sums  of  money  to  promote  mis- 
sionary work. 

Returning  home  late  in  1920,  Mr.  Watts  appeared  to  be  in 
much  better  health.  Within  less  than  two  weeks  afterward, 
however,  his  illness  attacked  him  with  renewed  violence.  He 
began  a  game  battle  for  life,  assisted  by  specialists,  surgeons, 
and  physicians.  Despite  his  age  he  fought  off  the  inevitable 
[39] 


for  weeks  after  physicians  had  admitted  their  inability  to  con- 
quer his  affliction.  Until  the  end  Mr.  Watts  maintained  a 
cheerful  frame  of  mind  and  indefatigable  spirit. 

Although  not  unexpected,  Mr.  Watts's  death  came  as  a  dis- 
tinct shock  to  his  relatives  and  many  friends.  The  news  spread 
rapidly,  and  yesterday  afternoon  many  institutions  with  which 
he  has  been  affiliated  either  as  an  official  or  benefactor  lowered 
their  flags  to  half  mast.  Last  night  telegrams  of  sympathy  and 
condolence  were  reaching  the  city  from  various  parts  of  the 
United  States. 

Although  the  funeral  arrangements  have  not  been  completed, 
it  is  known  that  the  service  will  be  held  to-morrow  afternoon  at 
the  home.  The  services  will  be  conducted  by  Dr.  David  H. 
Scanlon,  pastor  of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  assisted  by 
Dr.  W.  W.  Moore,  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  and  Dr. 
E.  R.  Leyburn,  of  Rome,  Georgia,  former  pastor  of  the  First 
Presbyterian  Church  in  this  city.  The  interment  will  be  in 
Maplewood  cemetery. 

Surviving  the  deceased  is  his  wife  and  one  daughter,  Mrs. 
John  Sprunt  Hill,  of  this  city.  Also  one  brother,  James  H. 
Watts,  of  Baltimore,  and  one  sister,  Mrs.  Charles  B.  King,  of 
Charlotte.  He  leaves  three  grandchildren,  George  Watts  Hill, 
Laura  Valinda  Hill,  and  Frances  Faison  Hill. 

The  deceased  was  probably  the  greatest  philanthropist  that 
North  Carolina  has  produced.  His  charities  reached  around  the 
globe.  In  December,  1909,  he  gave  to  Durham  the  new  Watts 
Hospital,  which  represents  an  outlay  for  buildings  of  about 
1500,000,  and  he  also  endowed  it  heavily  with  about  $500,000 
more.  The  hospital  was  the  "apple  of  his  eye."  For  many  years 
he  was  President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  this  institution. 

Several  years  ago  Mr.  Watts  built  a  handsome  Sunday-school 
room  for  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  in  this  city  at  a  cost  of 
many  thousands  of  dollars,  and  it  was  largely  through  his 
efforts  that  the  new  Presbyterian  Church  was  built. 

Mr.  Watts  was  actively  interested  in  foreign  mission  work. 
He  personally  supported  ten  missionaries  in  Korea,  two  in  Cuba, 
and  one  in  Africa,  and  some  years  ago  secured  the  permanent 
.     1:40] 


support  of  these  missionaries  by  providing  endowment  of  sev- 
eral hundred  thousand  dollars.  Mr.  Watts  while  attending  the 
World's  Sunday-school  Convention  in  Japan  last  fall  paid  a 
visit  to  the  mission  field  in  Korea. 

The  deceased  was  also  a  large  contributor  to  many  colleges 
and  schools.  Among  his  largest  gifts  were  donations  to  Union 
Theological  Seminary,  Davidson  College,  Flora  Macdonald 
College,  and  Agnes  Scott  College.  He  was  probably  the  great- 
est benefactor  of  Union  Theological  Seminary.  The  President 
of  the  Seminary,  in  speaking  of  Mr.  Watts's  donation,  said:  "It 
was  his  unprecedented  liberality  that  made  possible  the  removal 
of  the  Seminary  from  its  former  isolated  and  disadvantageous 
location  to  its  present  admirable  site  in  the  suburbs  of  Rich- 
mond, where  it  has  experienced  a  large  increase  of  attendance 
and  an  improvement  in  facilities  so  great  that  it  has  now  an 
equipment  second  to  that  of  no  other  institution  in  its  class. 
The  main  building  of  the  Seminary  was  erected  through  the 
munificence  of  Mr.  Watts,"  and  by  the  action  of  the  Board  of 
Directors  is  to  bear  his  name  through  the  future. 

Mr.  Watts  had  been  a  resident  of  Durham  forty  years.  He 
came  here  to  handle  a  part  interest  in  the  great  tobacco  manu- 
facturing industry  which  afterward  was  incorporated  as  W. 
Duke  Sons  &  Company.  While  he  was  one  of  the  most  efficient 
in  the  group  of  men  who  built  up  the  industry  as  one  of  the 
greatest  tobacco  houses  in  America,  his  interests  have  for  many 
years  not  been  consigned  along  one  line,  and  his  ability  and 
capital  have  entered  into  much  that  constitutes  the  greatness 
and  prosperity  of  this  city. 

Mr.  Watts  was  born  at  Cumberland,  Maryland,  August  i8, 
185 1,  a  son  of  Gerard  S.  and  Annie  E.  (Wolvington)  Watts.  He 
was  reared  at  Baltimore,  attending  the  public  schools  there  from 
1859  to  1868,  and  from  1868  to  187 1  as  a  student  of  civil  engi- 
neering in  the  University  of  Virginia.  However,  it  has  been 
along  manufacturing  and  industrial  lines  that  his  career  has 
been  made.  His  father  was  an  extensive  wholesale  tobacco 
dealer,  and  from  college  the  son  went  on  the  road  as  a  salesman 
for  G.  S.  Watts  &  Company. 

1:413 


In  the  meantime  Mr.  Watts  had  been  traveUng  for  the  to- 
bacco house  of  G.  S.  Watts  &  Company  from  1871  to  1878.  In 
the  latter  year  he  came  to  Durham,  and  at  once  used  his  ideas 
and  his  enterprise  to  stimulate  the  growth  of  the  Duke  firm,  and 
subsequently  aided  in  organizing  and  incorporating  W.  Duke 
Sons  &  Company,  in  which  he  became  a  stockholder  and  Sec- 
retary and  Treasurer.  This  business  joined  the  American  To- 
bacco Company  in  1890. 

It  would  be  a  difficult  matter  to  describe  fully  and  adequately 
all  the  many  activities  and  influences  that  have  radiated  from 
Mr.  Watts  since  he  took  up  his  residence  at  Durham.  In  1884, 
when  the  Commonwealth  Club  of  Durham  was  organized,  he 
was  elected  its  first  President.  This  club  under  his  presidency 
collected  the  capital  and  furnished  the  faith  and  enthusiasm 
which  brought  about  the  building  of  the  Lynchburg  and  Dur- 
ham Railroad,  the  Oxford  and  Durham  Railroad,  and  the  Dur- 
ham and  Northern  Railroad.  These  railroads  gave  Durham 
what  is  most  required,  adequate  transportation  facilities,  and 
insured  for  all  time  the  substantial  prosperity  of  the  city  as  a 
commercial  center. 

Mr.  Watts  erected  the  Loan  and  Trust  Building  of  Durham 
and  has  been  interested  in  practically  every  development  enter- 
prise of  the  city  in  the  past  thirty  or  thirty-five  years.  He  was 
President  of  the  Pearl  Cotton  Mills,  Vice-President  of  the 
Erwin  Cotton  Mills,  a  Director  of  the  Seaboard  Air  Line  Rail- 
way, Vice-President  of  the  Golden  Belt  Manufacturing  Com- 
pany; had  interests  in  the  Durham  Cotton  Manufacturing 
Company,  Mayo  Cotton  Mills,  at  Mayodan,  North  Carolina, 
the  Cooleemee  Cotton  Mills,  the  Golden  Belt  Bag  Manufactur- 
ing Company,  the  Durham  Loan  and  Trust  Company;  was  a 
Director  of  the  Fidelity  Bank,  the  Virginia  Carolina  Chemical 
Company,  Southern  Cotton  Oil  Company,  Republic  Iron  and 
Steel  Company,  and  many  other  companies.  He  was  also  Presi- 
dent of  the  Home  Savings  Bank,  of  Durham. 

What  he  has  done  to  stimulate  business  growth  and  enter- 
prise is  matched  by  his  public-spirited  citizenship  and  his  im- 
portant contribution  to  the  institutions  of  the  city  and  State. 

n42] 


He  erected  the  Watts  Hospital  at  Durham,  and  has  made  large 
contributions  to  the  orphan  asylums  at  Barium  and  the  Eliza- 
beth College,  also  to  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  at  Rich- 
mond, Virginia,  he  being  President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees 
and  Vice-President  of  the  Board  at  Davidson  College.  Mr. 
Watts  was  an  elder  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  had  been 
superintendent  of  its  Sunday-school  continuously  since  1885. 

On  October  19,  1875,  he  married  Miss  Laura  Valinda  Beall. 
Their  only  daughter  is  the  wife  of  John  Sprunt  Hill,  of  Durham. 
Mr.  Watts  was  married  the  second  time,  on  October  25,  191 7, 
to  Miss  Sara  V.  Ecker,  of  Syracuse,  New  York. 

Durham  Morning  Herald,  March  9,  1921. 


VAST  ASSEMBLAGE  OF  PEOPLE 
AT  WATTS'S  FUNERAL 

FINAL  TRIBUTE  PAID  DECEASED  BY  DR.   LEYBURN 

Beautiful  simplicity  marked  the  funeral  services  held  yester- 
day afternoon  for  George  Washington  Watts,  Durham's  multi- 
millionaire philanthropist,  who  died  last  Monday  morning. 

The  services  were  held  in  the  Watts  home  on  South  Duke 
Street,  with  hundreds  of  friends  and  relatives  in  attendance. 

Every  detail  connected  with  the  funeral  was  carried  out  in 
the  manner  which  the  family  believed  Mr.  Watts  would  have 
wanted  it  had  he  himself  planned  the  arrangements.  The  sim- 
plicity of  the  service  was  in  keeping  with  his  natural  modesty, 
and  the  assemblage  made  up  of  men  and  women  from  every 
walk  of  life  was  a  voluntary  testimony  of  the  esteem  in  which 
he  was  held.  Multi-millionaires,  statesmen,  bankers,  lawyers, 
ministers,  and  men  of  more  humble  professions  and  employ- 
ment mingled  their  grief  and  parting  respect  for  the  deceased 
humanitarian. 

During  the  services  business  operations  in  Durham  were  at  a 
standstill.  Practically  every  industry  and  place  of  business 
was  closed  between  the  hours  of  2.30  and  4  o'clock. 

11433 


The  more  than  200  tributes  and  the  more  than  100  telegrams 
of  sympathy  and  condolence  for  the  bereaved  family  were  an 
even  greater  attest  to  the  love  and  friendship  in  which  the  de- 
ceased was  held. 

Attending  the  funeral  from  out  of  the  city  were  many  promi- 
nent people.  Among  them  were:  Mrs.  Charles  B.  King  and 
sons,  Charles  Banks  and  George  Watts  King,  of  Charlotte; 
Governor  Cameron  Morrison,  of  North  Carolina;  Lieutenant- 
Governor  W.  B.  Cooper,  of  Wilmington;  Mr.  and  Mrs.  James 
H.  Watts,  of  Baltimore;  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Martin  Watts,  of  New 
York;  Misses  Minnie  and  Retta  Wolvington,  of  Baltimore; 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  Augustus  Mason,  of  Hagerstown,  Maryland; 
Dr.  George  Scholl,  of  Baltimore;  Dr.  W.  W.  Moore,  of  Union 
Theological  Seminary;  Dr.  E.  R.  Leyburn,  of  Rome,  Georgia; 
Dr.  C.  G.  Vardell,  of  Flora  Macdonald  College;  Dr.  Curry,  of 
Davidson  College;  Dr.  Martin  Turnbull,  of  Union  Theological 
Seminary;  James  B.  Duke  and  Frank  L.  Fuller,  of  New  York; 
Dr.  M.  L.  Swineheart,  of  Korea;  Henry  Sweets,  of  New  York; 
Rev.  S.  L.  Morris,  of  Atlanta;  Mrs.  Rufus  L.  Patterson,  of  New 
York;  Judge  R.  W.  Winston,  of  Raleigh;  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Al. 
Fairbrother,  of  Greensboro;  A.  M.  Scales,  of  Greensboro,  and 
William  R.  Miller,  of  Union  Theological  Seminary. 

The  services  were  opened  by  Dr.  David  H.  Scanlon,  pastor 
of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church.  The  sermon  was  delivered 
by  Dr.  E.  R.  Leyburn,  who  was  for  seventeen  years  Mr.  Watts's 
pastor,  and  Dr.  W.  W.  Moore  offered  prayer. 

Interment  was  made  in  Maplewood  cemetery. 

Durham  Morning  Herald,  March  10,  1921. 


DEATH  OF  MR.  WATTS 

Durham  is  to-day  in  the  solemn  hush  of  the  deepest  grief.  Not 
only  does  this  city  mourn  the  death  of  George  Washington 
Watts,  one  of  its  foremost  citizens,  but  the  State  and  the  nation 

[44] 


as  well.  He  was  known  for  his  sterling  qualities  of  mind  and 
heart;  and  the  friends  who  knew  and  loved  him  were  not  con- 
fined to  Durham,  or  the  State  of  North  Carolina,  but  extended 
in  foreign  lands.  In  civic  as  well  as  in  religious  activities  he 
was  a  paragon  of  piety  and  public-spirited  philanthropy. 

He  was  led  through  the  furnace  of  lingering  affliction  and 
bodily  sufi'ering,  in  which  his  golden  patience  was  refined  from 
the  dross  of  complaint.  He  died  the  death  of  a  life-long  Chris- 
tian, and  his  end  was  like  unto  the  departure  of  the  saints  of 
old.  His  works  will  live  after  him,  in  the  Watts  Hospital,  the 
care  of  orphans,  church  activities,  and  his  influence  in  the  for- 
eign missionary  field. 

From  the  formative  period  of  his  youth,  and  his  coming  to 
Durham  forty-three  years  ago,  to  the  last  hours  of  his  useful 
career,  he  belonged  to  the  number  of  those  who  "point  to  better 
worlds  and  lead  the  way."  With  his  fine  instincts  of  an  exalted 
citizenship  he  carried  his  wholesome,  manly,  and  inspiring  creed 
into  the  practical  aflfairs  of  daily  life.  Everybody  loved  "George 
Watts,"  as  he  was  familiarly  called  by  intimate  friends. 

It  would  have  been  difficult  to  find  a  better  exemplar  of  in- 
flexible integrity  and  uncompromising  devotion  to  duty.  He 
possessed  in  the  fullest  degree  the  cardinal  virtues  which  cluster 
around  the  home,  and  in  the  broader  fields  of  activity  he  was 
always  alert  to  the  best  interests  of  his  fellow-man,  according 
to  his  convictions.  Modest  as  a  maiden,  the  good  deeds  he  did 
were  never  known  to  the  world  and  will  never  be  estimated. 

He  was  largely  instrumental  in  bringing  to  Durham  three  of 
the  present  great  branches  of  railroads  which  center  here,  to 
say  nothing  of  his  activities  and  influence  in  many  of  the  great 
enterprises  of  this  city  in  which  he  had  a  hand  in  shaping  and 
pushing  to  success.  The  acuteness  of  his  mind  was  nothing 
short  of  genius — an  intuitive  perception  by  which  he  went 
straight  to  the  heart  of  things.  It  is,  perhaps,  in  religious  activ- 
ities, and  the  service  of  his  Master,  that  he  wrought  with  greater 
zeal  and  loving  affection.  Many  will  rise  up  and  call  him 
blessed.  There  was  a  suave  charm  of  manner  in  his  strongly 
individual  personality  which  made  it  easy  for  him  to  win  and 

[453 


retain  strong  friendships,  for  he  "held  his  patent  of  nobility 
direct  from  the  Almighty."  His  fidelity  and  loyalty  were  con- 
spicuous characteristics  which  blossomed  in  every  relation  of 
life. 

The  death  of  Mr.  Watts  is  nothing  short  of  a  calamity  to 
Durham.  Those  who  knew  him  best  and  longest  deplore  his 
death  most.  Now  that  he  has  "outsoared  the  shadow  of  our 
night,"  the  perspective  in  which  his  character  appears  gives  us 
a  deeper  appreciation  of  his  virtues  and  a  keener  realization  of 
our  loss.  There  was  knightliness  about  his  mind  and  manner 
which  suggests  the  tribute  to  the  dead  Hamlet: 

"Good  night,  sweet  prince, 
And  flights  of  angels  sing  thee  to  thy  rest." 

J.  A.  Robinson,  in  Durham  Morning  Herald,  .March  8,  1921. 


A  GENEROUS  SOUL 

There  will  be  wide-spread  regret  at  the  death  of  Mr.  George  W. 
Watts,  of  Durham.  A  native  of  Maryland,  he  came  to  Durham 
as  a  young  man  to  become  a  member  of  the  firm  of  W.  Duke 
Sons  &  Co.,  then  a  young  and  growing  company  engaged  in  man- 
ufacturing smoking  tobacco. 

Quiet,  modest,  an  earnest  church  worker,  diligent  in  business, 
he  was  welcomed  for  his  worth  and  fine  spirit.  The  company 
with  which  he  was  associated  rapidly  grew  to  be  the  greatest 
tobacco  concern  in  the  world,  he  became  very  rich,  and  yet  al- 
ways he  remained  the  same  unassuming  quiet  gentleman  he  was 
before  riches  enabled  his  generous  soul  to  find  expression  in 
large  gifts  to  benevolence. 

His  first  notable  donation  was  the  establishment  of  the  hos- 
pital which  bears  his  name.  In  many  other  ways  he  gave 
money,  and  much  money.  But  best  of  all  he  gave  himself  in 
good  works  in  Christian  labor  and  in  Christian  service. 

JosEPHUs  Daniels,  in  News  and  Observer,  March  8,  1921,  Raleigh,  N.  C. 

[46] 


WATTS-BEALL  MARRIAGE 


'Blessed  their  life  whose  marriage  prospers  well" 


WATTS-BE  ALL 


,N  the  evening  of  Tuesday,  the  nineteenth  inst., 
a  brilliant  marriage  was  celebrated  at  Cumber- 
land, Maryland.  The  happy  contracting  par- 
ties were  Mr.  George  W.  Watts,  of  this  city,  and 
Miss  Laura  Valinda  Beall,  of  Cumberland, 
Maryland,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  amiable  young  belles 
of  the  Queen  City.  Much  before  the  appointed  hour  there  were 
assembled  at  the  Lutheran  Church  a  large  number  of  the  friends 
of  the  youthful  pair,  and  at  eight  o'clock,  the  hour  fixed  for  the 
ceremony,  every  seat  was  filled.  The  bridal  party  arrived 
shortly  after  the  appointed  time  and  with  much  difficulty  ef- 
fected an  entrance  into  the  church.  They  approached  the  altar, 
preceded  by  the  ushers,  viz.,  Messrs.  Bruce  and  Glesson  Porter, 
of  Cumberland.  These  were  followed  by  Mr.  H.  E.  Roberts,  of 
this  city,  who  escorted  Miss  Mary  Lynn,  of  Cumberland;  Mr. 
James  H.  Watts,  of  this  city,  a  brother  of  the  groom,  and  Miss 
Eugie  Bausch,  of  Piedmont,  West  Virginia;  Mr.  L.  Albert 
Carr,  of  this  city,  and  Miss  Helen  Beall,  of  Cumberland,  a  sister 
of  the  bride;  Mr.  Charles  N.  Parkinson,  of  this  city,  and  Miss 
Nannie  Cushwa,  of  Hagerstown,  Maryland,  and  Miss  Clara 
Watts,  a  sister  of  the  groom.  Next  came  the  happy  pair  who 
were  so  soon  to  become  husband  and  wife.  The  bride  was  at- 
tired in  white  silk  trimmed  with  point  lace,  and  the  bridal  veil 
was  looped  with  natural  orange  blossoms.  The  bridesmaids 
were  all  in  white,  and  each  carried  a  beautiful  bouquet.    The 

1149] 


groomsmen  were  in  full  dress  suits.  The  officiating  clergyman, 
Rev.  R.  C.  Hollowaym,  of  Cumberland,  read  the  Lutheran 
service,  which  was  very  impressive.  The  ceremony  over,  the 
newly  wedded  couple  and  attendants,  accompanied  by  many 
friends,  repaired  to  the  residence  of  William  R.  Beall,  Esq.,  the 
father  of  the  bride,  where  a  handsome  reception  awaited  them. 
Numerous  congratulations  were  tendered  and  a  sumptuous 
collation  served,  after  which  the  happy  young  couple  embarked 
upon  the  1 1.30  train  for  an  extended  tour  through  the  West. 
Upon  their  return  to  this  city  the  parents  of  the  groom  will 
give  a  reception,  at  which,  no  doubt,  the  happy  couple  will  re- 
ceive the  congratulations  of  their  numerous  Baltimore  friends. 
Their  future  residence  will  be  in  this  city.  Among  the  many 
invited  guests  from  Baltimore  were  noticed  Mr.  and  Mrs.  G.  S. 
Watts,  parents  of  the  happy  groom;  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  W.  Wol- 
vington.  Miss  Allie  Wolvington,  and  Mr.  John  M.  Wait. 

From  the  Baltimorean,  October  30,  1875. 


[50] 


'What  greater  ornament  is  there  to  a  son  than  a  father's  glory;  or  what 
to  a  father  than  a  son's  honorable  conduct" 


DEATH  OF 
GERARD  SNOWDEN  WATTS 

On  the  evening  of  February  26,  1905,  at  his  country  home, 
"Beverly  Farm,"  near  Baltimore,  Maryland,  Mr.  Gerard  Snow- 
den  Watts  passed  away,  aged  eighty-two  years  and  four 
months. 

He  was  born  in  Baltimore  County,  in  1823.  In  young  man- 
hood he  was  identified  with  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  R.  R.,  after- 
ward settling  in  Cumberland,  Maryland,  where  he  engaged  in 
merchandising,  there  marrying  Miss  Annie  E.  Wolvington.  In 
1858  he  moved  to  Baltimore,  where  he  established  the  firm  of 
G.  S.  Watts  &  Co.,  doing  a  very  extensive  business,  known 
throughout  the  country.  As  a  business  man  he  was  energetic, 
enterprising,  and  efficient.  In  1890  he  retired  from  active 
business,  spending  the  time  since  at  his  beautiful  country 
place. 

Mr.  Watts  became  a  member  of  the  Second  Lutheran  Church, 
Baltimore,  forty-six  years  ago,  serving  most  of  this  time  in  the 
Council.  During  all  these  years  he  has  been  faithful,  loyal,  lib- 
eral toward  all  of  its  undertakings.  Outspoken,  positive,  con- 
scientious, he  was  a  true  friend  and  follower  of  God.  Sympa- 
thetic, sincere,  he  withheld  his  hand  from  no  truly  philanthropic 
enterprise. 

His  support  was  general  and  continuous  toward  every  benev- 
olent interest  of  our  General  Synod,  both  at  home  and  abroad. 
Through  his  liberality,  together  with  that  of  his  son,  George 
W.  Watts,  of  Durham,  North  Carolina,  Watts  Memorial  Col- 
[51] 


lege,  Guntur,  India,  was  made  possible.  His  sympathy  and 
substantial  help  were  rendered  toward  the  educational  help  of 
our  Lutheran  Church  in  the  South,  implanting  and  nourishing 
Elizabeth  College,  Charlotte,  North  Carolina,  bearing  the  name 
of  Mrs.  Watts. 

Mr.  Watts's  home  was  one  of  abounding  hospitality.  Joy 
was  scarcely  joy  to  him  unless  shared  by  others;  a  home,  too, 
where  God  was  honored,  reverenced,  and  loved.  Such  men  of 
prayer,  consecration,  and  lifelong  loyalty  are  too  uncommon. 

A  wife,  daughter,  and  two  sons,  with  many  others,  mourn  his 
loss.  His  body,  lying  in  our  beautiful  Louden  Park,  awaits 
God's  call  on  the  resurrection  morning. 


D^D 


THE  (FIRST)  WATTS  HOSPITAL 


"/  was  sick  and  ye  visited  me" 


THE  (FIRST)  WATTS  HOSPITAL 

ITS  INAUGURATION   LAST  NIGHT — A   LARGE  TURNOUT — PRESENTED 

TO  THE  TRUSTEES — PATRIOTIC  SPEECHES — 

A  HAPPY  TIME 

J>AST  night  was  an  eventful  one  in  Durham.  There 
was  enacted  at  Stokes  Hall  scenes  never  before 
witnessed  in  our  city.  It  was  the  inauguration 
of  the  Watts  Hospital  and  the  transfer  of  the 
>^  v^.^^^  property  to  the  trustees.  A  singular  coincidence 
is  the  fact  that  on  the  eve  of  the  anniversary  of  George  Washing- 
ton, 163  after  his  birth,  a  namesake,  George  Washington  Watts, 
presented  to  Durham  the  best  equipped  hospital  in  the  South. 
The  ladies — God  bless  them — had  transformed  the  stage  of 
the  hall  into  a  bower  of  loveliness.  The  Durham  orchestra 
furnished  fine  music  and  everything  had  a  pleasing  effect  upon 
the  immense  crowd  that  packed  the  hall  from  stage  to  rear  of 
gallery.  Surrounding  the  president  of  the  meeting,  Rev.  L.  B. 
Turnbull,  and  the  speakers,  were  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the 
hospital,  members  of  the  Durham  Medical  Academy,  and  prom- 
inent citizens.  Mr.  Turnbull  made  the  announcements.  Rev. 
W.  C.  Tyree  opened  the  exercises  with  a  most  fervent  prayer. 
Mr.  Watts,  the  donor,  made  the  following  presentation  speech: 
"Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  This  is  rather  an  unusual  and 
peculiar  position  for  me,  first,  to  make  a  public  address  upon 
any  subject,  and,  second,  upon  a  subject  referring  to  my  own 
acts. 
"Seventeen  years  ago  next  month  I  came  among  you  with 

[55D 


my  wife  and  baby  and  all  I  had.  I  burned  the  bridges  behind 
me,  casting  my  lot  here  'for  better  or  worse.'  Durham  was  then 
a  small  town  with  about  2500  inhabitants,  but  then,  as  now,  it 
was  a  live,  wide-awake,  thrifty  place;  the  people,  as  always 
before  and  since,  were  hospitable  and  kindly  disposed  toward 
the  stranger.  I  had  never  seen  the  faces  of  but  three  residents 
of  Durham  previous  to  our  coming  here,  yet  we  were  warmly 
welcomed,  received  into  your  homes,  invited  to  your  churches, 
and  encouraged  in  every  way  to  make  ourselves  part  of  the  com- 
monwealth. 

"From  that  day  to  the  present  we  have  cheerfully  recipro- 
cated the  feelings  as  then  expressed,  and  we  have  endeavored 
to  become  fellow-citizens  with  you;  we  have  to  the  best  of  our 
feeble  abilities  striven  to  aid  in  the  growth  and  progress  of  the 
town,  have  been  jealous  at  all  times  of  her  good  name  and  re- 
joiced in  her  continued  advancement  and  progression  in  num- 
bers, education,  morality,  and  wealth.  To-day  we  have  among 
your  numbers  some  of  our  closest,  warmest,  and  dearest  friends. 
What  success  we  have  achieved  has  been  in  your  midst. 

"It  has  been  my  desire  for  several  years  to  show  my  appre- 
ciation of  your  fellowship  and  kindness,  and  to  do  so  in  such 
a  manner  as  would  benefit  our  people  and  glorify  the  name  of 
the  Master  who  has  placed  in  my  hands  means  with  which  to 
honor  Him  and  the  responsibility  as  one  of  His  stewards.  I 
have  carefully  considered  the  needs  of  our  community  and 
sought  to  learn  what  was  best  to  be  done.  Education  is  well 
provided  for  in  our  beautiful  and  well  equipped  Trinity  College 
and  our  graded  and  private  schools,  second  to  none  in  the  State. 
The  imposing  and  commodious  Hotel  Carrolina,  a  structure  of 
which  every  citizen  is  proud,  is  all  that  we  could  wish  in  that 
line.  The  energetic,  pushing  men  of  the  community  have  stud- 
ded the  town  with  manufacturing  plants,  large  and  small,  which 
give  employment  to  all  who  wish  to  work.  Churches  are  upon 
all  our  streets.  But,  my  friends,  times  come  in  our  lives  when 
we  cannot  do  what  we  would.  Our  brains  refuse  to  study  or 
enjoy  the  educational  advantages  we  have.  The  body  cannot 
toil,  the  shop  or  office,  store  or  factory  has  no  attraction  for  us. 

[56] 


The  comforts  and  pleasures  of  the  CarroHna  no  longer  allure 
us.  The  sanctuary  is  beyond  our  reach.  The  fell  hand  of  dis- 
ease is  upon  us.  Our  doctors,  God  bless  them,  are  then  our  best 
friends;  they  serve  us  skilfully,  linger  by  our  bedsides  and  min- 
ister to  us.  Yet  often  their  almost  superhuman  efforts  and 
most  intelligent  attentions  are  thwarted  because  of  the  environ- 
ments of  the  sick  one,  or  lack  of  knowledge  of  those  left  in 
charge,  or  possibly  because  there  is  no  one  to  leave  in  charge. 

"Three  years  ago  I  was  for  a  short  while  a  patient  in  a  hos- 
pital, and  only  then  did  I  fully  learn  the  invaluable  services  of 
her  we  term  a  trained  nurse.  With  her  womanly  gentleness 
given  to  her  by  God,  augmented  by  years  of  study,  reflection, 
and  experience,  she  becomes  almost  a  heavenly  visitant,  an  angel 
of  mercy  at  the  bedside  of  the  sick.  She  knows  his  needs,  she 
realizes  his  condition,  her  hand  is  always  ready  to  make  him 
comfortable,  her  earnest  sympathy  encourages  him,  her  firm- 
ness stimulates  him,  and  her  training  enables  her  to  faithfully 
carry  out  the  physicians'  instructions.  More  than  once  I  have 
been  told  that  her  services  are  more  valuable  than  physic. 

"This  experience  directed  my  attention  and  reflection  to  hos- 
pital work.  I  have  studied  the  subject  during  my  leisure  hours 
and  examined  hospitals  whenever  possible.  My  visits  among  dif- 
ferent conditions  of  people  in  our  community  convinced  me  of  the 
benefits  to  be  derived  from  an  institution  of  this  character  here. 

"I  now  have  the  pleasure  of  informing  you  that  my  desire  has 
culminated  in  a  finished  group  of  buildings  on  West  Main 
Street,  furnished  and  equipped  for  the  purposes  of  a  hospital. 
The  construction  and  furnishing,  as  far  as  possible,  have  been 
done  by  our  own  home  people. 

"The  hospital  consists  of  five  buildings:  the  Administration 
Building  in  the  center,  38  x  36  feet,  two  stories  and  basement; 
Male  and  Female  pavilions,  each  31  x  62  feet,  one  story  high; 
a  Surgical  Building,  17  x  27  feet,  at  the  rear  of  the  Administra- 
tion Building,  and  a  low  one-story  building  containing  the  Au- 
topsy and  Mortuary  and  carriage  shed.  The  first  four  of  these 
are  connected  by  corridors,  enclosed  in  winter,  and  the  last 
entirely  isolated  on  lower  ground  at  the  rear  of  the  east  pavilion. 

[57] 


"Upon  the  first  floor  of  the  Administration  Building  are 
located  reception  room,  medical  ofTice,  matron's  room,  dining- 
room,  and  surgical  ward.  Upon  the  second  floor  are  two 
special  pay  wards,  two  chambers  for  nurses,  bath-room,  lava- 
tory, and  closets.  In  the  basement  are  kitchen,  store-rooms, 
heating  apparatus,  and  laundry. 

"The  east  and  west  pavilions  each  contain  a  free  ward  with 
seven  beds,  two  pay  wards,  one  bed  each,  diet  kitchen,  linen 
closet,  patients'  clothes  closet,  medicine  closet,  bath,  and  lava- 
tory. 

"The  ground  contains  4.55  acres.  The  architects.  Rand  & 
Taylor,  of  Boston,  Massachusetts,  make  hospital  architecture 
a  specialty.  They  have  planned  a  very  simple  yet  comprehen- 
sive and  complete  contagious  ward,  to  be  located  later  on  the 
rear  of  the  lot.  They  have  endeavored  to  produce,  as  far  as 
possible,  an  ideal  small  hospital,  having  all  the  absolute  essen- 
tials of  a  large  institution  yet  so  carefully  and  economically 
studied  as  to  be  possible  under  such  conditions  as  surround  us. 

"The  total  number  of  patients'  beds  are  twenty-two,  includ- 
ing two  in  the  surgical  ward.  These  beds  are  the  same  as  those 
in  the  Johns  Hopkins  Hospital,  and  were  designed  by  Dr.  Hurd, 
superintendent  of  that  institution. 

"The  heating,  ventilating,  and  sanitary  arrangements  are  all 
worked  out  in  the  most  complete  manner,  every  precaution 
being  taken  to  produce  the  most  perfect  conditions  in  all  sick 
wards  of  which  modern  hospital  science  is  capable.  The  sani- 
tary appliances  are  all  of  the  simplest,  strongest  character, 
everything  open  and  accessible. 

"The  heating  is  with  steam,  and  in  the  wards  is  indirect;  the 
air-ducts,  both  inlet  and  outlet,  are  proportioned  to  their  use. 
All  beds  have  special  ventilation  in  addition  to  the  top  and 
bottom  vents  of  the  rooms, — the  surgical  ward  and  operating 
room  having  extra  ventilating  capacity. 

"The  entire  buildings  are  lighted  by  electricity  from  our 
town  plant.  Electric  bells  and  speaking  tubes  connect  every 
department,  and  telephones  bring  the  hospital  in  connection 
with  all  sections  of  the  town. 

[58] 


"The  finish  is  absolutely  plain  with  rounded  edges  and  curved 
inner  angles,  every  dust-catching  and  dust-retaining  member 
being  eliminated. 

"Although  no  money  is  wasted  upon  the  exterior  of  the  insti- 
tution, we  wished  to  have  as  pleasing  an  effect  produced  as  pos- 
sible. The  architects  have  adopted  a  simple  Renaissance  style, 
having  in  the  low  pitch  and  broad  overhang  of  the  roofs  a 
Spanish  feeling,  capable  of  producing  a  stately  as  well  as  pic- 
turesque effect. 

"The  buildings  and  equipment  have  cost  about  $30,000  (a 
detailed  statement  will  be  furnished  in  the  first  published  report 
of  the  trustees).  What  remains  of  $50,000  I  will  place  as  an 
endowment  on  the  hospital,  which  will  yield  probably  $1200 
annually.  It  will  require  at  least  $4000 — I  trust  that  some  of 
the  other  speakers  may  indicate  to  you  the  necessity  of  raising 
sufficient  revenue  and  how  to  do  it. 

"This  is  not  an  institution  for  the  exhibition  of  brilliant  sur- 
gery and  specialties  in  diseases  by  renowned  experts.  It  is  sim- 
ply a  cottage  hospital,  a  home  for  the  care  and  treatment  of 
those  sick  and  injured  citizens  of  Durham  who  are  deprived  of 
the  favorable  conditions  that  are  necessary  for  their  comfort 
and  the  successful  management  of  their  maladies.  The  pure 
air,  sunlight,  good  food,  and  careful  nursing  which  this  institu- 
tion will  afford  will  of  themselves  save  many  lives  which  would 
be  sacrificed  under  the  poorer  sanitary  conditions  of  many 
homes  and  boarding-houses. 

"There  is  one  thing  to  which  I  desire  to  call  your  attention. 
As  far  as  I  can  learn  it  is  the  only  hospital  in  the  State  or  this 
section  (not  receiving  government  assistance)  which  has  a  real 
charity  feature  connected  with  it.  In  Wilmington,  Raleigh, 
and  Danville  patients  are  required  to  pay  five  dollars  per  week 
for  admittance  to  the  charity  wards.  We  propose  to  give  all 
persons  in  need  care  and  treatment  absolutely  without  price; 
yet  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  service  is  not  necessarily 
free.  All  those  who  are  able  to  pay  for  their  care  and  medical 
attendance  will  be  expected  to  do  so.  The  doors  of  the  hospital 
are  always  open,  however,  and  are  open  for  all. 

[59] 


"Our  physicians  from  the  beginning  have  heartily  taken  up 
the  work  and  will  give  freely  of  their  time  and  ability.  The 
work  is  just  begun.  Do  we  realize  what  the  proper  conduct  of 
this  hospital  means  to  them?  The  medical  and  surgical  staff, 
which  includes  all  members  of  the  Durham  Academy  of  Medi- 
cine, pledge  to  this  institution  their  faithful  and  continued 
service,  absolutely  without  hope  of  any  reward  whatever  except 
the  consciousness  that  they  are  exemplifying  those  humane  and 
chivalrous  traits  which  are  not  tradition  only,  but  are  a  living, 
daily  record  with  the  medical  profession  everywhere.  They 
enter  upon  the  arduous  work  cheerfully,  hopefully,  and  1  bid 
them  God-speed;  but  unless  this  hospital  differs  from  every 
other  occasions  will  arise  when  they  will  especially  need  the 
steadfast  confidence  of  all  good  citizens.  For,  give  of  their  time 
and  skill  as  faithfully  and  freely  as  they  may,  poor  human 
nature  will  sometimes  refuse  to  respond,  remedies  will  fail,  and 
life  goes  out,  perhaps  without  any  apparent  cause.  Then  when 
the  baffled  physician  is  himself  bewailing  the  impotence  of  hu- 
man knowledge  and  human  effort,  let  us  see  to  it  that  he  is  not 
further  depressed  by  the  criticism  or  ingratitude  of  the  thought- 
less and  unworthy.  We  must  do  more  than  give  our  money  and 
our  service;  we  must  remember  to  be  loyal  in  our  support  of 
those  who  are  the  special  instruments  to  carry  out  the  work  of 
this,  our  institution. 

"Great  care  has  been  taken  to  arrange  the  administration  of 
this  hospital  so  that  it  shall  never  be  managed  by  a  few  persons 
who  may  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  it  is  built  for  and  belongs  to 
the  people.  Party  politics,  sect,  nor  clique  can  obtain  control; 
the  trustees  are  appointed  by  the  several  religious  bodies.  Hos- 
pital Aid  Association,  Academy  of  Medicine,  Town  Commis- 
sioners, Trinity  College,  and  the  donor. 

"In  conclusion,  Mr.  Chairman,  it  gives  me  pleasure  to  place 
in  your  hands,  as  a  representative  of  the  citizens  of  Durham, 
this  deed  of  gift.  May  the  door  of  Watts  Hospital  never  be 
closed  to  the  suffering  for  lack  of  liberal  contributions,  of  will- 
ing service,  or  kindly  sympathy.  May  it  ever  be  conducted  in 
the  true  Christian  or  Christ-like  spirit,  where  all  distinctions  of 

[60] 


class  or  creed  fade  away  in  the  one  universal  desire  to  bind  up 
the  wounds,  to  relieve  the  pains,  and  strengthen  the  courage 
of  our  common  humanity." 

Here  Mr.  Watts  presented  the  deed  to  the  President,  Mr. 
Turnbull. 

To  this  graceful  speech  Mr.  C.  B.  Green  responded  in  behalf 
of  the  town  and  accepted  the  generous  gift.  He  spoke  of  the 
epochs  in  the  history  of  men,  towns,  and  communities.  This 
was  one  of  them.  The  scenes  of  to-night  will  be  indelibly  im- 
pressed upon  the  hearts  of  all  the  people.  Time  might  destroy 
the  beautiful  building,  but  the  philanthropic  spirit,  the  Christ- 
like charity  thus  manifested  will  live  on  and  on  when  these 
bodies  shall  have  returned  to  the  dust  from  whence  they  sprung. 
"The  people  of  Durham  thank  you,  yea,  thrice  thank  you  for 
this  beneficent  gift." 

Rev.  J.  C.  Kilgo  made  the  address.  It  was  a  stirring  and  elo- 
quent effort.  Great  ideas  ruled  the  world.  Mr.  Watts  had 
great  ideas  and  had  set  a  living  example  which  would  live  and 
grow.  Speaking  to  Mr.  Watts  he  said:  "You  do  not  know  what 
you  have  done.  You  have  made  a  revelation  of  yourself  to  us; 
we  know  you  better  than  we  ever  did  before.  You  have  sur- 
rendered yourself  to  us;  it  will  not  be  Mr.  or  Colonel,  but  plain 
George  Watts;  you  have  become  the  property  of  your  fellow- 
men.    God  bless  you." 

The  meeting  was  then  thrown  open  to  citizens  who  desired  to 
express  themselves.  Dr.  A.  E.  Yates  said  his  remarks  were  im- 
promptu but  on  paper.  Education,  religion,  and  high-toned 
journalism  were  the  great  factors  in  this  life.  He  spoke  of  our 
churches.  Trinity  College,  and  the  magnificent  Watts  Hospital, 
and  what  a  blessing  they  were  to  humanity.  His  remarks  were 
at  times  witty  and  produced  much  good  feeling. 

R.  B.  Boone  spoke  from  a  sense  of  high  appreciation  for  the 
man  who  had  so  much  of  the  image  of  his  Maker  in  him.  It  was 
a  great  institution.  When  the  idea  was  first  born  in  the  mind 
of  the  donor,  there  was  by  his  side  a  gentle  spirit,  not  seen,  but 
who  encouraged  and  helped  it  on.    The  honors  were  partly  hers. 

H.  A.  Foushee  spoke  of  those  in  "single  cussedness,"  and  pic- 
[613 


tured  Durham  fifty  years  hence  when  the  Watts  Medical  Uni- 
versity would  be  a  great  institution  in  the  then  great  city  of 
Durham.  Its  blessings  would  go  on  through  all  generations. 
He  was  glad  we  had  such  citizens  who  could  accomplish  such 
grand  works. 

Dr.  A.  G.  Carr  made  a  humorous  little  talk  in  behalf  of  the 
medical  profession.  It  was  a  splendid,  well-equipped  institu- 
tion. We  can  now  have  the  best  of  medical  care  and  operations 
performed  without  going  away  from  home. 

Captain  E.  J.  Parrish  spoke  of  the  great  responsibility  the 
transfer  of  this  institution  carries  with  it.  He  urged  the  organi- 
zation of  Watts  Hospital  Associations.  The  annual  payment 
was  only  two  dollars.  Every  citizen  should  join  and  thus  carry 
on  the  grand  work. 

The  by-laws  governing  the  trustees  and  the  hospital  were 
read  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Board,  Mr.  J.  L.  Markham. 

The  benediction  was  pronounced  by  Rev.  J.  W.  Wellons,  and 
the  large  audience  dispersed  with  warm  Christian  hearts  and 
a  just  pride  in  the  noble  gift  and  work  Mr.  Watts  has  made 
and  put  on  foot. 

Durham's  appreciation  can  best  be  shown  by  standing  close 
to  this  institution. 

Daily  Sun,  Durham,  February  22,  1895. 


THE  (FIRST)  WATTS  HOSPITAL 

AN  HOUR  SPENT  AT  DURHAM'S  HAVEN  FOR  THE  SICK — CLOSE  OF 
THE  FIRST  YEAR — THE  BLESSINGS  ARE  SEEN  IN  MANY  WAYS — 
EQUIPMENT  AND  MANAGEMENT — THE  EXAMPLE  OF  GEORGE 
WATTS  AND  HIS  UNDERLYING  MOTIVE  WORTHY  OF  WIDE  EMU- 
LATION 

I  SPENT  an  hour  this  morning  at  the  Watts  Hospital.  It  has 
been  open  just  a  little  over  a  year,  and  ever  since  its  doors  were 
open  I  have  intended  to  visit  and  to  tell  the  readers  of  the  News 
and  Observer  something  about  its  perfect  equipment  and  be- 
neficent work.  Every  traveler  on  the  North  Carolina  Railroad 
as  he  enters  Durham  from  the  west  has  admired  the  good  taste 

1:62  3 


that  the  exterior  of  the  hospital  presents.  The  plan  is  a  simple 
Renaissance  style,  giving  in  the  low  pitch  and  broad  overhang 
of  the  roofs  a  Spanish  appearance  which  provides  a  stately  as 
well  as  picturesque  effect.  The  interior  arrangements,  planned 
with  a  view  to  the  special  needs  for  which  the  generous  donor 
founded  it,  are  even  more  perfect  and  complete.  The  finish  is 
plain,  with  rounded  edges  and  curved  inner  angles,  every  dust- 
catching  and  dust-retaining  member  being  eliminated. 

The  hospital  consists  of  five  buildings:  the  Administration 
Building  in  the  center,  38  x  36  feet,  two  stories  and  basement; 
Male  and  Female  Pavilions,  each  31  x62  feet,  one  story  high; 
a  Surgical  Building,  17  x  27  feet,  at  the  rear  of  the  Administra- 
tion Building,  and  a  low  one-story  building  containing  the 
Autopsy  and  Mortuary,  and  carriage  shed.  The  first  four  of 
these  are  connected  by  corridors,  enclosed  in  glass  in  winter, 
and  the  last  entirely  isolated  on  the  lower  ground,  at  the  rear 
of  the  east  pavilion.  These  commodious  and  well  constructed 
buildings  stand  in  an  enclosure  of  nearly  five  acres,  which  is 
being  beautified  by  grass  and  shrubbery. 

From  the  moment  you  enter  the  front  door  you  are  impressed 
with  the  sweetness  and  cleanliness,  the  laundry  and  kitchen 
being  as  bright  and  as  cheerful-looking  as  the  neat  reception 
room  or  the  office  of  the  doctors.  The  pay  wards  and  the  free 
wards  are  models  of  neatness  and  comfort.  At  the  head  of  each 
bed  (there  are  twenty-two)  is  an  electric  bell  by  which  the 
patient  can  summon  immediate  attendance,  and  an  electric 
light  which  gives  light  to  the  patient  without  disturbing  those 
in  adjoining  cots.  The  beds  are  the  same  as  those  in  the  Johns 
Hopkins  Hospital,  and  were  designed  by  Dr.  Hurd,  superin- 
tendent of  that  institution. 

The  heating,  ventilating,  and  sanitary  arrangements  have 
been  worked  out  in  the  most  complete  manner,  every  precaution 
having  been  taken  to  produce  the  most  perfect  conditions  in 
all  sick  wards  of  which  modern  hospital  science  is  capable. 
Particularly  are  the  sanitary  appliances  to  be  commended. 
They  are  all  of  the  simplest  and  strongest  character — every- 
thing open  and  accessible. 

C633 


There  is  not  a  method  of  ventilating,  a  surgical  instrument,  a 
comfort  or  convenience — in  a  word,  there  is  nothing  that  could 
add  to  the  completeness  that  is  wanting,  and  I  was  astonished 
at  the  many  devices  of  ventilation,  heating,  and  for  surgery 
that  the  donor  had  provided,  and  provided  in  a  way  that  chal- 
lenges admiration  of  the  skill  in  arrangement  as  well  as  in  the 
generosity  that  prompted  the  gift.  It  is  evident  that  Mr.  Watts 
gave  as  much  time  in  planning  as  in  money  to  make  this  lovely 
ideal  hospital. 

Not  long  ago  friends  asked  Mr.  Watts  what  influenced  him 
in  the  beginning  to  build  the  hospital,  and  he  said: 

"Three  years  ago  I  was,  for  a  short  while,  a  patient  in  a  hos- 
pital, and  only  then  did  I  fully  learn  the  invaluable  services  of 
her  we  term  a  trained  nurse.  With  her  womanly  gentleness, 
given  to  her  by  God,  augmented  by  years  of  study,  reflection, 
and  experience,  she  becomes  almost  a  heavenly  visitant,  an 
angel  of  mercy  at  the  bedside  of  the  sick.  She  knows  his  needs; 
she  realizes  his  condition ;  her  hand  is  always  ready  to  make  him 
comfortable;  her  earnest  sympathy  encourages  him;  her  firm- 
ness stimulates  him,  and  her  training  enables  her  to  faithfully 
carry  out  the  physicians'  instructions.  More  than  once  I  have 
been  told  that  her  services  are  more  valuable  than  physic. 

"This  experience  directed  my  attention  and  reflection  to  hos- 
pital work.  I  have  studied  the  subject  during  my  leisure  hours, 
and  examined  hospitals  whenever  possible.  My  visits  among 
different  conditions  of  people  in  our  community  convinced  me 
of  the  benefits  to  be  derived  from  an  institution  of  this  char- 
acter here." 

Mr.  Watts  has  given  |50,ooo  to  the  hospital.  The  total  cost 
of  the  ground,  buildings,  furnishings,  and  advancements  for 
expenses  was  $29,944.68 — say  $30,000  in  round  numbers.  In 
addition  to  paying  this  sum  out  in  cash  Mr.  Watts  has  given 
I9000  in  Durham  &  Northern  Railway  bonds  (6  per  cent.), 
$5000  in  Rocky  Mount  Mills  bonds  (6  per  cent.),  and  $6000  in 
Riverside  cotton  mill  stock.  The  interest  from  these  stocks 
and  bonds  gives  an  income  of  about  $1200  per  year;  the  city  of 
Durham  appropriates  I900  per  year,  and  the  other  expenses, 

1:643 


approximating  $4000  per  year,  are  met  by  pay  patients  (this 
brought  in  I708.53  the  first  ten  months),  the  aid  association, 
and  other  donations  and  gifts. 

The  hospital  is  managed  by  a  Board  of  Trustees  as  follows: 
George  W.  Watts,  President;  B.  N.  Duke,  Vice-President;  John 
L.  Markham,  Secretary;  Leo  D.  Heartt,  Treasurer;  W.  W. 
Fuller,  E.  J.  Parrish,  Dr.  A.  G.  Carr,  M.  A.  Angier,  Rev.  J.  C. 
Kilgo,  L.  A.  Carr,  W.  L.  Wall,  and  S.  T.  Morgan,  representing 
every  church  and  every  benevolent  organization  in  Durham. 
There  is  no  sectarianism  about  the  hospital.  Nobody  asks  any 
questions  about  church.  The  measure  of  need  is  the  measure 
of  help  extended.  One  of  the  nurses  is  a  Catholic,  and  she  is  as 
efficient  and  as  popular  as  any  Presbyterian  in  a  community 
in  which  there  are  few  Catholics. 

The  Durham  Academy  of  Medicine  give  to  the  hospital, 
without  charge,  their  services,  and  are  as  faithful  in  minister- 
ing to  the  suffering  poor  as  to  any  millionaire  patient.  Regu- 
larly two  of  them  are  in  charge  two  months  at  a  time,  alternat- 
ing in  such  manner  that  at  no  time  do  two  take  their  turns  at 
the  same  time.  They  feel  a  great  pride  in  the  institution,  hav- 
ing long  felt  more  keenly  than  the  other  members  of  the  com- 
munity the  need  of  a  place  for  the  treatment  of  those  who 
needed  quiet  and  skilled  training.  Sixty-eight  persons  were 
treated  the  first  ten  months,  and  there  were  twenty-seven  sur- 
gical operations,  forty-seven  discharged  cured,  eleven  im- 
proved, and  only  two  died.  This  attests  the  ability  of  the 
attending  physicians. 

The  matron.  Miss  Florence  McNulty,  is  now  absent  on  a 
short  leave.  The  trustees  have  put  on  record  that  "she  is  wise 
in  her  management  of  all  details  pertaining  to  the  hospital. 
Physicians,  patients,  nurses,  servants,  and  all  who  come  into 
communication  with  her  acknowledge  her  master  hand  in  di- 
recting affairs." 

A  Lady  Board  of  Visitors,  of  which  Mrs.  Bessie  Leak  is  Pres- 
ident and  Mrs.  James  A.  Robinson  Secretary,  visit  the  hospital 
regularly,  and  have  been  very  helpful  in  their  supervision  and 
encouragement. 

[65] 


One  of  the  good  agencies  of  the  hospital  is  a  training  school 
for  professional  nurses,  and  there  are  now  several  young  wo- 
men under  training,  and  instruction  and  lectures  are  given  by 
all  the  members  of  Durham  Academy  of  Medicine. 

I  have  thus  gone  into  particulars  about  the  arrangement  of 
this  hospital,  its  management,  its  first  year's  useful  work,  for 
two  purposes: 

I.  To  show  how  much  good  a  generous  rich  man  can  do 
when  he  mixes  his  money,  his  brains,  and  his  heart.  Mr.  Watts 
did  not  build  this  hospital  by  his  money  alone.  He  saw  the 
need  of  a  place  where  those  who  could  not  have  the  quiet  and 
best  attention  at  home  could  be  tenderly  nursed  back  to  health 
and  strength,  and  a  place  where  the  lack  of  money  would  not 
debar  any  one.  When  he  gave  the  hospital,  in  a  formal  pres- 
entation speech,  Mr.  Watts  used  these  words  (and  they  are  an 
index  to  the  motives  that  actuate  his  life) :  "It  has  been  my  de- 
sire for  several  years  to  show  my  appreciation  of  your  fellow- 
ship and  kindness,  and  to  do  so  in  such  a  manner  as  would  bene- 
fit our  people  and  glorify  the  name  of  the  Master  who  has 
placed  in  my  hands  means  with  which  to  honor  Him,  and  the 
responsibility  of  one  of  His  stewards."  There  never  yet  lived  a 
man,  poor  or  rich,  who  thus  felt  his  responsibility  to  God,  who 
did  not  find  or  make  a  way  to  help  or  to  lift  up  his  fellow-men. 

Mr.  Watts  is  one  among  the  few  rich  men  who  regards  him- 
self as  one  of  God's  stewards,  has  it  in  his  heart  to  "glorify  the 
Master."  He  has  done  it  in  a  way  that  the  Master  would  ap- 
prove, for  this  hospital  has  already  brought  hope  and  health  to 
many,  and  will  be  a  place  of  refuge  and  a  haven  of  rest  for  the 
sick  of  earth  for  all  time  to  come.  While  not  inappreciative  of 
commendation  of  his  fellows,  Mr.  Watts  finds  his  chief  grati- 
fication in  the  knowledge  that  he  has  been  the  means  of  bringing 
back  health  to  the  sick  and  giving  release  from  deformity  or 
injury  to  those  who  stood  in  need  of  the  surgeon's  knife.  And 
in  this  further  fact:  that  the  usefulness  of  this  hospital  will  not 
end  with  his  life,  but  will  stand  as  a  place  of  help  to  the  sick  of 
generations  yet  unborn.  In  these  feelings  of  love  for  his  fel- 
lows and  stewardship  for  the  Master,  Mr.  Watts  has  the  sym- 

[66] 


pathy  and  active  help  of  his  wife,  who  seconds  all  the  generous 
deeds  that  are  associated  with  his  name.  On  the  occasion  of 
the  formal  presentation  of  the  hospital  R.  B.  Boone,  Esq.,  turn- 
ing to  Mrs.  Watts,  said:  "Madam,  I  present  to  you  the  grati- 
tude of  this  community  for  the  beneficent  influence  of  your 
Christian  life  over  that  of  your  husband,  which  influence  is  evi- 
denced by  the  gift  of  to-night.  You  inspired  the  benediction, 
your  husband  bestowed  it.    Honors  are  even." 

2.  I  hope  that  the  example  of  Mr.  Watts  here  in  Durham 
(as  well  as  the  example  of  the  late  John  Rex,  who  bequeathed 
money  to  found  the  Rex  Hospital  in  Raleigh)  will  induce 
wealthy  men  in  other  towns  and  cities  to  forever  associate  their 
names  with  a  public  hospital  for  their  towns.  There  are  twenty 
towns  in  the  State  that  need  such  a  hospital.  The  man  who 
founds,  even  if  he  does  not  endow,  a  hospital  in  his  community 
is  the  Good  Samaritan  to  those  of  his  own  and  future  genera- 
tions. 

JosEPHus  Daniels,  in  the  Newi  and  Observer, 
Raleigh,  North  Carolina,  March  17,  1896. 


1:67: 


THE  (SECOND)  WATTS  HOSPITAL 


'They  serve  God  well  who  serve  His  creatures'' 


THE  (SECOND)  HOSPITAL  IS  TENDERED 

CITY  AND  COUNTY  TAKE  IT  OVER  FORMALLY — LARGE  CROWDS  PRES- 
ENT— EXERCISES  HEARD  BY  MORE  THAN  A  THOUSAND  PEOPLE 
■ — SOME  OF  ADDRESSES  MADE — NUMBER  OF  VISITORS  FROM 
RALEIGH  AND  GREENSBORO — SOMETHING  IN  DETAIL  OF  THE 
GREAT  INSTITUTION — FEATURES  OF  DAY 

'HE  WATTS  HOSPITAL  yesterday  became  the 
property  of  the  city  and  county  of  Durham  by 
formal  tender  of  its  donor,  Mr.  George  W. 
Watts,  and  upon  one  condition  only,  that  it  be 
used  as  a  hospital  and  be  open  always  to  the 
indigent  sufferers  of  Durham. 

The  joy  of  the  hour  was  greater  than  the  author  of  that  good 
gift  had  hoped.  He  thought  there  might  be  a  coterie  of  personal 
friends  and  professionalists  who  might  go  out  and  inspect  the 
premises,  share  with  him  the  enthusiasm  of  his  proffer,  but  he 
did  not  expect  half  the  number  who  came  and  trod  upon  each 
other's  feet  for  standing  room  to  hear  the  exercises.  Three 
times  as  many  stood  entirely  outside,  caught  a  desultory  word 
and  sentence,  joined  in  the  applause,  and  imbibed  the  spirit  of 
the  occasion,  which  was  among  the  half  dozen  biggest  things 
ever  done  in  Durham. 

Persons  skilled  in  the  manipulation  of  crowds  guessed  looo 
to  be  there.  Those  more  skilled  set  the  figures  higher.  From 
the  car  line  a  steady  stream  of  vehicles,  horses  and  buggies, 
phaetons,  landeaus,  automobiles,  and  cabs,  kept  the  traffic  up 
until  after  the  ceremonies  began,  and  many  walked  all  the  way. 
It  was  hospital  day  and  the  people  were  there. 


Raleigh  sent  up  a  large  delegation  of  physicians,  among  them 
being  Doctors  Richard  Henry  Lewis,  Hubert  A.  Royster,  Al- 
bert Anderson,  W.  S.  Rankin,  A.  W.  Goodwin,  Delia  Dixon 
Carroll,  and  Miss  Orchard,  of  the  Rex  Hospital.  From  Greens- 
boro came  Doctors  J.  W.  Long  and  B.  B.  Williams,  the  first 
named  of  these  being  one  of  the  most  noted  of  state  surgeons. 
Many  other  physicians  from  counties  adjacent  were  there,  the 
difTiculty  of  obtaining  their  names  being  all  the  greater  by  rea- 
son of  the  jam  at  the  general  entrance  door. 

At  2.45  Captain  E.  J.  Parrish,  chairman  of  the  committee 
on  arrangements,  made  a  brief  introductory  address  stating 
the  object  of  the  exercises.  In  presenting  Rev.  E.  R.  Leyburn, 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  Captain  Parrish  said  he  felt  that 
such  a  ceremony  as  that  which  had  for  its  object  the  reception 
of  a  gift  like  this  should  be  opened  with  prayer,  and  Mr.  Ley- 
burn  offered  a  petition  which  covered  the  spirit  of  giving  and 
the  spirit  of  receiving.  Mr.  Watts  was  then  introduced,  and  in 
a  speech  of  five  minutes  turned  over  to  Mr.  James  H.  Southgate 
the  deed  to  the  property,  adding  the  first  instalment  of  the 
donation,  $100,000,  and  giving  his  personal  pledge  of  enough 
cash  to  balance  the  interest  on  the  other  $100,000.  Long  ap- 
plause greeted  this  announcement.  It  lasted  a  full  minute  and 
again  did  it  appear  that  more  friends  and  better  friends  were 
behind  the  munificent  offering  of  one  man  to  all  men. 

The  spirit  of  all  the  speeches  yesterday  was  most  harmoni- 
ous. All  struck  independently  upon  the  same  idea  and  treated 
it  their  own  way.  The  acceptance  of  so  large  a  gift  was  no 
easy  ceremony,  and  representatives  of  all  elements  of  the  coun- 
ty's life  spoke  feelingly  of  the  new  duties  the  institution  opens 
to  every  person  in  the  city. 

The  printed  program,  marked  for  its  brevity,  was  followed. 
The  responses  came  in  their  order,  and  music  divided  the  speak- 
ing periods  into  short  whiles.  When  the  ceremonies  were  de- 
clared complete  the  people  were  invited  to  go  through  the 
buildings  to  inspect  them,  and  the  real  magnificence  of  the  in- 
stitution was  thereby  gained.  But  a  moment's  hesitation  at 
any  one  of  the  buildings  was  possible.  A  perfect  labyrinth  of 
rooms,  closets,  wards,  toilets,  and  all  accessories  was  met. 

[70 


The  lobby  where  the  exercises  were  held  probably  seated 
300  people.  The  speech  of  Mr.  Watts  offering  the  institution 
is  printed  elsewhere,  and  Mr.  James  H.  Southgate  arose  to 
the  response  for  the  Board  of  Trustees.  "Thirty  years  ago," 
he  smiled  broadly,  "when  I  was  an  old  man,  there  were  but  two 
places  which  Durham  people  could  visit  daily,  the  post-ofTice 
and  the  railway  station.  It  was  about  this  time  that  we  learned 
of  a  young  Marylander  who  was  to  come  here,  purchase  an  in- 
terest in  the  W.  Duke  &  Sons  factory,  and  be  one  of  us.  I 
remember  well  the  young  stranger,  younger  and  better  looking 
then  we  were,  because  he  wore  a  tailor-made  gown,  or,  I  should 
have  said,  suit,  and  we  didn't.  He  was  as  quiet  as  a  girl  and 
as  gentle  as  two  girls.  He  was  sober  that  day,  and  I  might  say 
now  that  it  has  been  more  than  thirty  years  since  we  took  one 
together.    He  came  here  then  and  projected  his  life  rightly. 

"As  old  men  and  members  of  the  old  Commonwealth  Club 
we  used  to  plan  for  the  city's  future,  and  there  were  laid  such 
foundations  that  no  one  of  the  two  or  three  generations  to 
come  will  be  able  to  build  such  superstructures  as  to  break  these 
foundations  down.  And  since  coming  here  his  life  has  radiated 
its  goodness  in  all  directions,  until  his  gifts  are  felt  in  Union 
Theological  Seminary,  in  Elizabeth  College,  in  Barium  Springs 
Orphanage.  And  to-day  there  is  no  city  whose  philanthropies 
have  been  so  great  as  those  of  our  own  Durham. 

"That  philanthropy  has  been  constructive  and  preventive. 
It  is  over  the  entire  world,  and  comes  to  tell  us  that  we  grow 
better  with  the  years.  There  is  one  man,  Mr.  Kennedy,  willing 
$25,000,000  to  education;  there  is  the  great  generosity  of  Mr. 
Carnegie,  of  which  you  have  read  so  much;  another  man  tells 
us  that  we  have  the  hook-worm  in  the  South  and  gives  a  million 
to  fight  it;  we  find  another  giving  largely  for  the  fight  against 
pellagra,  and  all  for  that  preventive  purpose  characteristic  of 
giving.  Let  this  great  wave  of  philanthropy  roll  on.  And, 
changing  the  figure,  let  it  be  a  river  which  widens  and  deepens 
on  its  sweep. 

"I  want  you  young  men  to-day  to  study  the  life  of  this  young 
Marylander.  He  has  always  been  on  the  right  side,  and  from 
such  a  pinnacle  his  words  and  deeds  fall  with  the  added  gravity 

[73] 


of  one  standing  upon  such  heights.  I  want  you  to  look  upon 
him  as  one  of  the  State's  noblest  philanthropists,  who  has  taught 
us  how  to  spend  and  how  to  give. 

"We  accept  this  great  institution,  Mr.  President,  and  from 
this  day  let  us  set  it  apart  and  pray  that  it  shall  ever  produce 
the  fruit  of  soundness  in  men." 

MAYOR  GRISWOLD 

Following  music  by  the  orchestra,  Mayor  Griswold  rose  to  a 
short  acceptance  on  the  part  of  the  city  of  Durham  through  the 
Board  of  Aldermen,  of  which  board  he  is  ex-officio  chairman. 
He  referred  to  the  first  report  of  Mr.  Watts,  in  which  it  was 
prophesied  that  the  institution  now  about  to  be  abandoned 
would  prove  inadequate  to  the  growing  needs  of  the  county  and 
the  immediate  vicinity.  He  referred  to  the  high  Christian 
character  of  the  giver,  and  pledged  the  city's  best  to  enter  as 
properly  in  the  spirit  of  receiving  as  the  philanthropist  had 
done  in  the  giving. 

MR.  BROGDEN 

County  Attorney  W.  J.  Brogden,  for  the  Board  of  Commis- 
sioners, accepted  the  hospital  and  traced  the  growth  of  the  com- 
munity idea  from  the  first  to  its  high  expression  in  the  great 
institutions. 

He  defined  religion,  science,  and  brotherhood  as  the  great  tan- 
gible triumvirate  which  put  mankind  in  condition  to  redeem  or 
be  redeemed.  The  first  must  move  men  to  something  better, 
science  must  tell  them  what  it  is,  and  brotherhood  must  direct 
the  goodness  in  the  right  channels.  With  these  principles  the 
philanthropist  becomes  the  prophet.  He  is  the  seer,  gazes  into 
the  "dreamy  yet  to  be,"  when  he  hears  the  voice  of  the  "ever- 
lasting now." 

Mr.  Brogden  took  over  for  the  county  commissioners  the 
county's  part  of  the  gift,  and  declaring  that  nature  is  full  of 
redemption  and  that  this  hospital  is  redemptive  in  its  aims,  he 
closed  his  ten  minutes  address,  which  was  applauded  among  the 
most  heartily  of  them  all. 

[74] 


DR.  A.  C.  JORDAN 
Dr.  a.  C.  Jordan  responded  for  the  County  Medical  Society. 
He  was  reminiscent  for  a  moment,  and  rehearsed  the  gifts  of 
Mr.  Watts  and  spoke  of  the  County  Medical  Society's  joy  in 
the  new  institution.  He  read  the  resolutions  passed  by  that 
body  thanking  him  for  the  institution  and  pledging  the  society 
to  proper  effort  to  manage  the  large  trust  reposed  in  them. 

Elsewhere  appears  the  complete  text  of  Dr.  J.  C.  Kilgo's 
written  remarks  uttered  in  such  fine  taste  and  excellent  Eng- 
lish. Mr.  Watts's  written  remarks,  terse,  exactly  to  the  issue, 
will  also  be  found  in  another  column. 

HOSPITAL  OFFICERS 
It  was  announced  that  the  following  officers  of  the  hospital  will 
be  known  in  connection  with  the  institution :  George  W.  Watts, 
President;  John  Sprunt  Hill,  Vice-President;  Professor  A.  H. 
Merritt,  Secretary;  P.  W.  Vaughan,  Treasurer. 

THE  TRUSTEES 
The  Board  of  Trustees  will  be  composed  of  George  W.  Watts, 
F.  L.  Fuller,  B.  N.  Duke,  and  John  Sprunt  Hill,  appointed  by 
Mr.  Watts.  Appointed  by  the  mayor  and  representing  the 
Board  of  Aldermen  will  be  Alderman  R.  L.  Lindsey,  and  upon 
the  Hospital  Aid  Association's  vacancy  of  one  man  J.  Ed.  Stagg 
is  named.  Dr.  N.  M.  Johnson  represents  the  Durham  Medical 
Society,  Professor  A.  H.  Merritt  is  Trinity  College's  appointee, 
P.  W.  Vaughan  represents  the  Baptist  Church,  Rev.  E.  R.  Ley- 
burn  the  Presbyterian,  Captain  E.  J.  Parrish  Trinity  Church, 
and  Dr.  J.  M.  Manning  the  Episcopal. 

The  charter  provides  for  twelve  trustees  and  it  can  be 
changed  only  by  the  legislature.  But  at  the  next  general  as- 
sembly application  will  be  made  for  an  increase  in  the  number, 
and  it  will,  of  course,  be  granted.  The  Board  of  Lady  Visitors 
will  be  composed  of  Mesdames  J.  S.  Mesley,  L.  L.  Morehead, 
J.  Harper  Erwin,  C.  W.  Toms,  Q.  E.  Rawls,  B.  L.  Tyree,  J.  C. 
Michie,  W.  C.  Barrett,  J.  S.  Hill,  W.  D.  Carmichael,  George  W. 
Watts,  and  J.  S.  Carr,  Jr. 


FACTS  ABOUT  HOSPITALS 
For  a  sort  of  ready  reference  there  have  been  compiled  a  few 
short  facts  about  the  hospital  which  will  be  interesting  to  pre- 
serve.   They  follow: 

This  new  Watts  Hospital  is  situated  just  northwest  of  the 
city  limits,  on  a  beautiful  eminence  overlooking  Trinity  College 
and  West  Durham.  The  architect  is  Bertrand  E.  Taylor,  of 
Boston,  one  of  the  best  known  hospital  architects  in  the  world. 
He  built  more  than  two  hundred  hospitals  in  the  United  States 
and  other  countries. 

The  contractor  is  John  L.  Wilson,  of  Richmond,  Virginia, 
who  built  the  Jefferson  Hotel  at  Richmond,  Mutual  Building 
at  Richmond,  and  many  other  expensive  buildings  in  the  South- 
ern States.  During  the  past  few  years  he  has  devoted  his  at- 
tention almost  entirely  to  reinforced  concrete  structures. 

The  Watts  Hospital  is  a  thoroughly  fire-proof  structure,  built 
of  reinforced  concrete  and  brick.  The  main  building  is  three 
stories  high  and  the  other  buildings  two  stories  high.  The  total 
cost  of  land  and  buildings  to  date  is  $217,000.  In  the  early 
spring  a  nurses'  home  is  to  be  built,  which  will  bring  the  cost 
up  to  about  1250,000  for  land  and  buildings.  The  endowment 
of  building,  given  entirely  by  Mr.  Watts,  is  $200,000.  The 
building  at  present  will  accommodate  seventy-one  patients,  and 
as  soon  as  the  nurses'  home  can  be  built  it  will  accommodate 
ninety  patients.  It  is,  therefore,  four  times  as  large  as  the  pres- 
ent hospital. 

Its  equipment  is  as  good  as  any  hospital  in  the  United  States 
so  far  as  it  goes.  It  is  beautifully  situated  on  a  high  hill  about 
one  half  mile  northwest  of  Trinity  College,  and  overlooks  the 
entire  city  of  Durham.  It  is  in  the  center  of  a  well-graded  plot 
of  land  consisting  of  twenty-five  acres.  Upon  twelve  acres  of 
this  ground  there  is  a  fine  growth  of  oak  and  hickory  trees.  For 
detailed  description  of  each  building  call  upon  Mr.  George  W. 
Watts  or  visit  the  buildings  themselves. 

This  gives  no  detail,  and  minutis  is  one  of  the  wonders  of 
the  institution.  Near  the  general  entrance  will  be  observed  the 
superintendent's  office,  the  private  office,  and  one  moves  but  a 

[763 


few  steps  until  one  begins  to  comment  upon  the  doors.  They 
are  all  of  ash,  prettily  painted,  and  inviting.  Nobody  would 
ever  fail  to  open  one  of  them.  The  telephone  system  is  very 
ingenious.  Instantaneous  connection  with  all  parts  of  the 
building  follows  the  pressing  of  the  correct  button,  and  it  is  the 
best  that  such  an  institution  could  find.  When  one  emerges 
from  the  first  suite  of  offices  one  goes  into  the  nurses'  parlor, 
and  from  there  to  the  patients'  examination  room.  From  there 
is  wound  the  way  to  the  resident  physicians'  rooms,  but  there 
will  be  none  of  these  until  the  graduation  of  young  physicians 
next  spring.    There  will  be  two  then. 

Passing  along,  the  attention  is  directed  to  the  floors,  every 
particle  of  which  is  of  the  most  enduring  concrete.  The  thought 
of  fire  bankrupts  the  imagination,  but  there  hang  the  significant 
twenty-three  extinguishers  which  could  wrestle  with  any  blaze 
that  could  reasonably  be  expected  to  start  there.  Going  on,  the 
nurses'  dining-room,  a  place  that  looks  like  a  modern  hotel,  will 
be  seen,  and  the  serving  room,  a  bailiwick  laid  ofi"  for  those  who 
are  on  sentry  all  the  time,  is  next  met. 

The  maternity  room,  well  lighted,  with  noiseless  chairs  and 
lights  for  gas  or  electricity,  a  rolling  screen,  and  sterilizers 
plentiful,  was  seen  by  the  visitors,  and  a  place  known  as  the  gen- 
eral sitting-room  was  then  viewed.  The  interesting  baby  room, 
with  attachable  bed-baskets  and  a  private  suite  for  the  nurses, 
came  among  the  never-ending  number  of  divisions  in  the  build- 
ings. Private  rooms  for  ladies,  linen  closets,  the  children's  ar- 
cade and  balcony,  constructed  so  as  to  make  impossible  their 
falling  over,  connect  the  three-story  building  with  the  charity 
wards.  All  of  these  fixtures  are  of  copper,  the  best  possible 
metal,  and  have  an  undoubted  quality  of  endurance  and  stabil- 
ity. The  two-story  building  has  duplicate  rooms,  and  what  is 
seen  below  is  also  viewed  above.  The  general  ward  room  with 
six  beds,  equipped  with  all  the  furniture,  rolling  chairs,  and 
screens  that  the  best  ones  have,  shows  upon  what  scale  the  insti- 
tution can  take  care  of  those  not  able  to  provide  for  themselves, 
and  there  is  a  convalescents'  dining-room. 

[77] 


WILL  HAVE  DIETITL'\N 

This  hospital  is  to  have  a  dietitian,  one  person  whose  sole  care 
is  the  kind  of  food  that  the  patients  shall  be  entitled  to  use.  She 
is  not  to  be  a  nurse  and  will  have  no  other  duties  than  those 
pertinent  to  the  convalescents  or  the  more  ill  patients  require 
as  to  diet.  The  dietitian  will  be  here  soon,  and  just  as  iMr. 
Watts  would  not  purchase  any  but  the  best  fixtures  for  his  hos- 
pital, so  did  he  act  in  the  choice  of  people,  and  his  head  of  this 
new  department  will  have  all  necessary  credentials. 

THE  OPERATING  ROOM 
The  ward  in  which  the  operations  are  done  is  one  among  the 
last  in  the  excursion  through  the  hospital.  There  is  perhaps 
the  most  interesting  and  complete  room  of  them  all.  Equipped 
with  a  great  sterilizer  in  which  all  instruments  are  dipped  pre- 
paratory to  use,  there  are  individual  sterilizers  all  about  it  so 
that  an  instrument  dropped  or  anywise  infected  may  be  imme- 
diately dropped  into  those  basins  nearer  and  used  again.  The 
tables  work  easily  and  are  adapted  to  all  kinds  of  position.  Ad- 
joining or  near  by  is  the  anesthetic  room  and  not  far  away  the 
X-ray,  which  can  be  made  a  dungeon  in  darkness  with  a  simple 
touch  of  the  fixtures  in  the  room. 

Not  a  more  up-to-date  feature  is  found  than  the  big  mattress 
disinfector,  something  very  new  here.  The  instrument  par- 
takes greatly  of  the  nature  of  a  great  boiler,  and  the  bed  and  its 
clothes  are  put  into  it.  When  thoroughly  steamed  and  all 
germs  put  to  a  finish,  in  the  superabundance  of  care  the  clothes 
are  not  again  exposed  to  the  room  through  which  they  were 
taken,  but  are  carried  through  another.  And  this  big  mattress 
machine  has  one  end  in  the  pure  room  while  the  other  is  in  the 
infected  one. 

There  is  the  gildless  mortuary  room,  one  of  the  morbid  mem- 
ories that  one  must  carry,  but  a  necessity.  Patients  die  some- 
times despite  the  hospitals  and  the  skill.  An  isolated  ward  is 
reserved  for  those  contagious  diseases  which  find  their  way  into 
the  hospital  despite  all  efforts  to  thwart  them.  No  such  cases 
are  admitted,  but  once  broken  out  there  is  this  room  which  will 

[78] 


give  the  patient  treatment,  yet  all  of  the  hospital  community 
complete  separation  from  the  diseased  man.  There  is  a  lab- 
oratory fitted  up  in  connection  with  the  institution,  and  it  is 
adapted  to  the  experiments  that  the  doctors  will  make. 

Away  from  the  hospital  and  connected  with  the  walk  the 
engine-room  and  laundry  are  noticed;  but  these  were  not  vis- 
ited yesterday.  Electric  irons  for  the  laundresses  are  provided, 
and  the  engine-room  is  ready  soon  to  run  the  hospital  with  elec- 
tricity. To  the  west  of  these  the  best  half  of  the  twenty-five- 
acre  site  is  being  developed  for  a  park  to  be  used  by  the  hospital. 
The  front  is  bare  now,  but  gardeners  are  getting  it  ready  for  its 
carpet  of  green  next  year,  and  by  the  close  of  the  next  summer 
it  is  expected  that  the  campus  will  be  as  beautiful  as  everything 
else  about  the  place  is. 

Circular  troughs,  running  so  as  to  carry  all  water  to  a  certain 
point,  have  been  provided  and  the  drainage  is  perfect.  There 
will  be  no  washing,  and  the  front  of  the  hospital  campus  will 
soon  be  alluring  in  its  attractiveness. 

The  excursion  through  the  buildings  is  now  finished,  and  one 
feels  impelled  to  ask  who  are  to  be  physician-in-charge  and  all 
of  the  heads.  So  far  as  the  hospital  itself  goes  there  will  be  no 
head.  The  Durham  County  Medical  Association  will  direct 
the  institution,  and  what  physicians  are  brought  here  will  be 
under  their  direction.  Each  physician  will  be  assigned  to  what- 
ever work  is  laid  out,  and  persons  having  their  own  physicians 
and  coming  there  will  not  be  denied  their  ministrations.  There 
will  be  no  visible  head,  and  a  harmonious  working  is  assured. 
Miss  Wyche  is  head  nurse,  and  there  will  be  something  like 
twenty  in  that  institution. 

Such,  briefly,  are  the  inside  features  of  the  sanatorium.  Of 
the  man  and  his  impulses  everybody  in  Durham  and  North 
Carohna  well  knows.  Christian  charity  and  pagan  philan- 
thropists have  had  their  champions  since  history  began  to  write 
their  deeds,  and  neither  has  been  willing  to  admit  that  the  one 
antedated  the  other.  The  great  gifts  of  the  enormously  rich 
find  their  authors  divided,  a  pious  Rockefeller  on  the  one  side 
and  a  doubtfully  religious  Carnegie  giving  as  freely  without 


regard  for  the  thing  men  call  religion.  There  is  an  irreligious 
Stephen  Girard  and  his  college  pledged  to  the  secular  spirit 
solely,  but  there  is  a  more  splendid  expression  in  a  score  of 
really  religious  men  who  heed  the  still  small  voice  within  them. 
There  is  an  egoist  who  protests  that  all  of  these  generous  gifts 
in  hospitals,  asylums,  and  their  kindred  are  but  the  assertion  of 
selfishness  where  the  community  assumes  the  attitude  of  the 
individual  and  declines  to  harbor  the  sick,  the  maimed,  and 
imbecile. 

All  of  these  disagreeing  factors  searching  for  the  secret 
springs  of  human  action  might  well  agree  that  there  is  in  our 
midst  one  man  who  has  accepted  the  Nazarene's  simple  dictum, 
that  a  kindness  to  one  of  the  least  of  men  is  a  ministration  to 
the  greatest  of  men;  that  no  personal  equation  has  entered  into 
this  broad  charity.  It  is  a  corporate  Good  Samaritan,  the  con- 
crete expression  of  human  service,  an  inspiration  founded  in 
the  aspiration  to  be  the  chief  among  men — and  their  servant, 
and  lastly  the  gift  of  love  out  of  the  pure  heart  of  George  W. 
Watts,  of  Durham. 

George  W.  Watts,  in  turning  over  the  hospital  to  the  city  of 
Durham,  said: 

"Fifteen  years  ago,  February  21  next,  we  presented  to  Dur- 
ham the  hospital  on  Main  Street,  containing  twenty-one  beds 
and  costing  130,000,  with  an  endowment  of  |20,ooo. 

"For  some  three  or  four  years  afterward  we  were  much  dis- 
appointed in  the  failure  of  the  public  in  general  to  make  use  of 
the  institution.  Yet  the  reasons  now  seem  obvious.  But  few 
of  the  smaller  cities  or  larger  towns  had  hospitals,  and  their 
uses  were  not  only  not  known,  but  misapprehended  by  the  large 
majority  of  our  citizens.  They  were  regarded  as  places  where 
the  sick  were  taken  to  die,  and  those  in  need  of  surgical  atten- 
tion to  be  mutilated.  Time  was  required  to  correct  this  im- 
pression and  educate  the  people  as  to  the  true  intent  and  pur- 
pose of  the  hospital. 

"Those  in  charge  and  our  medical  fraternity  continued  faith- 
ful in  advocating  the  advantages  to  the  sick  of  such  a  place. 
Those  who  had  been  patients  were  pleased  and  told  others  of 
their  experiences.    The  hospital  then  began  to  grow  in  popular 

[80] 


favor,  until  there  ceased  to  be  room  for  the  applicants.  This 
required,  in  the  spring  of  1906,  an  additional  two-story  build- 
ing, containing  eight  wards  with  the  necessary  baths,  kitchens, 
etc.  Even  this,  however,  did  not  supply  the  demands  and  the 
opportunity  of  doing  the  greatest  amount  of  good,  so  we  began 
to  think  of  bigger  and  better  things.  The  matter  was  carefully 
considered  for  many  months  and  discussed  with  my  family. 
We  concluded  that  a  new  hospital,  to  meet  all  the  demands  for 
years  to  come  and  modern  in  all  respects,  might  be  erected  for 
about  175,000.  Then  the  architect  was  sent  for  and  a  location 
sought.  He  disapproved  of  an  addition  to  the  old  hospital  be- 
cause of  lack  of  room  as  well  as  the  noise  and  smoke  from  the 
street  and  trains.  Sentiment  for  the  old  place  was  hard  to  over- 
come. The  present  location  was  selected  after  careful  inspec- 
tion of  all  the  available  sites  near  Durham.  The  architects 
submitted  plans;  these  were  changed  as  other  useful  features 
were  suggested,  until  the  final  plans  had  grown  several  times 
larger  than  originally  contemplated.  Work  was  started  in  May, 
1908,  and  now,  after  nineteen  months,  we  bid  you  welcome  to 
the  consummation  of  the  first  group  of  buildings,  which  we 
believe  you  will  find  as  nearly  complete  as  a  small  hospital  can 
be.  Much  work  yet  remains  to  be  done  on  the  grounds ;  this  will 
be  continued  until  the  grounds  are  as  complete  as  the  buildings. 

"It  is  our  desire  and  purpose  to  erect  next  year  a  nurses'  home 
on  the  north  side  of  the  main  building,  similar  in  outward  ap- 
pearance to  the  general  pavilion  now  on  the  south  side. 

"We  also  hope  from  time  to  time,  as  the  demands  for  more 
space  grow,  to  add  other  pavilions,  or  wards,  in  conformity  to  a 
plan  for  a  large  group  of  buildings. 

"In  response  to  a  desire  expressed  by  many  it  may  not  be 
amiss  to  give  approximately  the  cost,  as  follows : 

Land,  grading,  drives,  fencing,  etc $25,000.00 

Buildings    1 74,000.00 

Furniture  and  equipment  (not  including  what  we 

can  use  from  old  hospital) 14,000.00 

Water  pipings,  etc 2,800.00 

X-ray  and  clinical  laboratory  (estimated) 1,200.00 

Total  I2 1 7,000.00 

C813 


"And  now,  Mr.  Chairman,  it  is  a  great  pleasure  to  hand  to 
you,  as  the  representative  of  the  trustees  and  the  people,  the 
deed  for  this  property,  to  be  yours  as  long  as  it  is  used  exclu- 
sively for  a  hospital  for  the  sick,  at  which  board,  attention,  and 
nursing  shall  be  free  to  the  indigent  sick  of  Durham  City  and 
County.  May  it  ever  be  conducted  in  the  true  Christian  or 
Christ-like  spirit,  where  all  distinctions  of  class  or  creed  fade 
away  in  the  one  universal  desire  to  bind  up  the  wounds,  to  re- 
lieve the  pains,  and  strengthen  the  courage  of  our  common  hu- 
manity. 

"In  addition,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  hand  you  securities  amount- 
ing to  $100,000  to  be  added  to  the  endowment.  At  a  convenient 
time  I  will  increase  the  endowment  to  |20o,ooo,  and  until  this 
is  done  I  shall  contribute  in  cash  sufficient  to  make  the  income 
from  this  source  as  if  the  amount  of  the  endowment  was  already 

|200,000." 

President  J.  C.  Kilgo,  of  Trinity  College,  made  the  following 
address : 

DR.   KILGO'S  SPEECH 

"The  event  which  calls  us  together  to-day  creates  a  new  date 
in  the  calendar  of  Durham.  These  splendid  buildings,  occupy- 
ing the  summit  of  this  hill  and  overlooking  our  city,  appeal  to 
every  noble  impulse  of  our  minds  and  inspire  in  us  all  a  gratitude 
which  we  cannot  express.  The  brick  and  mortar  and  timber 
which  have  gone  into  their  construction  are  visible  and  can  be 
easily  reckoned  in  their  commercial  values  and  estimated  in 
their  architectural  form.  But  as  expensive  as  they  are,  they  do 
not  constitute  the  real  material  out  of  which  this  superb  hos- 
pital has  been  built.  Into  these  walls  has  been  put  an  invisible 
material  which  was  not  dug  out  of  the  clay  or  cut  out  of  the 
forests,  nor  can  it  be  measured  in  cubic  yards  and  valued  in  the 
terms  of  the  market. 

"Here  the  things  which  do  appear  were  made  of  the  things 
which  do  not  appear.  Faith,  hope,  and  love  have  gone  into 
every  piece  of  material  that  is  in  these  buildings,  while  they  are 
the  eternal  foundation  that  holds  these  walls  in  place  and  gives 
to  them  incalculable  worth.    These  are  the  things  that  shine 

[SO 


with  immortal  splendor  from  these  walls  and  stir  in  us  the  deep- 
est feelings  of  thankfulness. 

"Nothing  seems  surer  in  the  world  than  that  goodness  is 
steadily  winning  its  battle.  Its  advance  has  been  and  is  still 
slow  and  oftentimes  apparently  not  at  all,  but  in  events  like  this 
is  proclaimed  its  progress,  and  faith  is  given  another  indisput- 
able reason  for  its  hopes.  Listening  to  voices  of  sorrow,  wit- 
nessing the  struggles  of  men,  and  seeing  the  desperate  powers 
of  evil  that  are  at  work  on  all  sides,  one  is  apt  to  grow  despond- 
ent and  yield  himself  to  gloom  and  to  despair.  But  the  world 
has  come  a  long  distance  of  progress  from  the  reign  of  paganism 
and  brutal  disregard  of  human  needs  to  this  moment  and  to  this 
place.  It  is  a  long  distance  from  the  savage  custom  of  slaugh- 
tering the  captives  of  war  to  the  patient  and  expensive  care  in 
well-ordered  hospitals  of  the  wounded  enemy  taken  on  the  field 
of  battle. 

"Freedom  has  come  a  long  journey  from  the  days  when  in 
Attica  there  were  three  slaves  to  every  freeman,  and  in  Sparta 
seven  Helots  to  every  free  citizen.  Rome  in  the  vainglory  of 
its  greed,  lust,  and  blind  brutality  boasted  that  when  the  Colos- 
seum, that  temple  of  bestial  shame  and  wild  savagery,  fell, 
then  Rome  would  fall,  and  when  Rome  fell  the  world  would 
fall.  But  the  Colosseum  has  fallen  and  Rome  has  fallen,  yet 
the  world  abides  and  in  the  place  of  the  temple  of  human 
slaughter  are  schools  and  asylums  and  hospitals  and  churches. 
These  things  tell  the  story  of  human  progress  and  assure  the 
faith  of  those  who  truly  believe  in  the  triumphant  destiny  of 
truth  and  righteousness. 

"Such  deeds  as  this  are  therefore  of  deep  and  far-reaching 
meaning.  It  is  common  enough  to  think  of  them  as  monuments 
which  will  gratefully  perpetuate  the  memory  of  those  who  do 
them,  and  this  is  inevitably  true;  but  the  minds  from  which 
they  spring  do  not  so  intend  them.  Deeper  and  mightier 
motives  inspire  such  noble  work.  It  is  also  easy  to  see  the  im- 
mediate benefits  which  will  flow  from  them,  and  this  is  full  of 
assurance  and  encouragement,  yet  it  is  far  from  summing  up 
the  total  outcome.  They  have  their  places  in  the  wide  sweep 
of  patriotic  and  sanctified  labor  to  make  this  world  a  better 

1:83] 


world,  to  take  from  the  shoulders  of  mankind  something  of  the 
load  that  is  crushing  out  life,  to  drive  away  some  of  the  clouds 
that  make  the  way  of  human  history  dark  and  dangerous  for 
those  who  must  go  along  its  roughest  parts,  to  add  some  new 
force  to  the  powers  that  are  making  for  universal  good,  and  to 
unite  with  the  Saviour  of  mankind  in  the  vast  enterprise  of  hu- 
man redemption.  In  this  larger  perspective  this  hospital  had 
its  birth,  and  in  this  larger  setting  alone  can  the  meaning  of  its 
buildings  and  equipments  and  ministries  be  correctly  read. 

"While  we  as  citizens  of  Durham  and  the  recipients  of  this 
munificent  gift  cannot  and  do  not  wish  to  restrain  self-congrat- 
ulations, yet  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  remind  ourselves  in  this 
hour  of  gratitude  and  joy  that  this  donation  brings  to  us  new 
tasks  and  demands  of  us  all  new  and  larger  fidelity  to  human 
welfare.  It  is  a  true  cause  for  thanksgiving  that  we  have  in  our 
midst  a  home  where  our  suffering  may  receive  the  ministry  of 
wise  experts  and  the  patient  care  of  the  faithful  nurse.  But  we 
are  charged  with  the  care  and  the  support  of  this  superb  hos- 
pital, than  which  there  is  none  better  in  the  South,  if  there  is  a 
single  one  so  excellent.  The  measure  of  its  service  will  be  the 
degree  of  our  fidelity  to  our  duty.  If  in  the  place  of  verbal 
praise  we  bestow  substantial  support,  we  shall  not  only  extend 
good,  but  we  will  make  our  gracious  benefactor  doubly  glad 
that  he  trusted  us.  We  must  keep  ourselves  reminded  that 
out  of  the  success  of  one  effort  springs  another  and  a  larger 
effort. 

"Into  these  elegant  halls  will  come  an  unbroken  line  of  weak 
and  suffering  men,  women,  and  children  in  search  of  health  and 
a  longer  life.  Their  faces  will  be  pale  and  their  bodies  trembling 
with  disease.  Some  must  go  down  into  the  operating  room, 
where  they  will  come  face  to  face  with  death.  The  many  ele- 
gant rooms  that  have  been  provided  with  scientific  care  are 
to  be  the  scenes  of  sufferings  and  weary  waiting.  The  glee  of 
this  happy  hour  will  soon  be  hushed  in  behalf  of  the  sick,  and 
the  groan  of  pain  will  take  the  place  of  our  laughter.  When 
we  pass  along  the  way  in  our  evening  drives,  the  quiet  dignity 
of  these  buildings  should  be  a  message  of  sympathy  addressed 

1:84] 


to  our  conscience,  and  not  one  of  us  should  be  so  dead  to  truth 
and  mercy  as  not  to  hear  the  voice.  To  remember  our  sick  out 
here  will  make  us  a  people  with  deeper  souls,  larger  hearts,  wider 
spirits,  and  diviner  servants.  I  am  much  disposed  to  reckon 
the  Watts  Hospital  into  our  system  of  education,  where  the 
people  of  Durham  are  trained  in  mercy,  in  human  sympathy, 
and  Christly  love. 

"But  far  beyond  our  borders  must  the  service  of  this  institu- 
tion be  extended.  As  the  years  multiply  and  the  ministry  in 
this  place  goes  on,  this  will  become  less  and  less  a  Durham  in- 
stitution. We  may  to-day  call  it  ours,  to-morrow  it  will  as  truly 
belong  to  all  this  region,  and  any  sick  man  may  equally  call 
it  his,  though  he  may  not  be  able  to  speak  a  word  of  our  lan- 
guage. From  this  beautiful  summit  will  go  forth  a  light  of  hope 
that  will  penetrate  into  the  sick  room  of  the  palace  and  fall 
with  cheer  on  the  poor  bed  of  the  pale  child  in  the  mountain 
cabin.  It  will  shed  forth  a  light  that  will  make  clearer  the  way 
of  that  heroic  servant,  the  country  physician,  who  toils  away 
without  facilities  to  serve  the  people  among  whom  he  lives. 
But  far  better  still,  this  hilltop  will  be  radiant  by  day  and  by 
night  with  that  heavenly  light  which  the  Saviour  of  mankind 
shed  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago  on  the  hills,  in  the  valleys, 
and  along  roads  of  Judea,  and  which  has  shone  brighter  and 
brighter  to  this  good  day.  Here  is  an  altar  of  mercy  upon  which 
the  light  of  His  healing  grace  rests  with  ceaseless  splendor. 

"1  heartily  congratulate  our  people  in  our  city  who  have  so 
many  causes  to  be  thankful  for  the  things  they  have,  and  to 
show  their  gratitude  by  deeds  of  kindness  that  shall  be  known 
and  read  of  all  men.  1  congratulate  the  sick  who  may  come 
hither  with  confidence  and  get  from  this  institution  all  that  it 
has  to  give.  I  congratulate  our  faithful  physicians  that  they 
have  at  their  command  such  rare  instruments  and  agencies  to 
do  the  work  to  which  they  have  been  called  and  dedicated.  I 
congratulate  those  unselfish  women  who  have  given  themselves 
to  the  task  of  nursing  the  sick  that  they  have  such  an  elegant 
home,  such  exceptional  opportunities  to  study  their  profession, 
and  such  excellent  chances  to  minister  to  the  suffering. 

[1853 


"And  while  I  would  not  mar  this  hour  with  words  of  flattery, 
yet  gratitude,  justice,  and  truth  unite  to  demand  that  I  sin- 
cerely congratulate  him,  our  fellow-townsman,  Mr.  George  W. 
Watts,  not  only  that  he  has  come  into  larger  resources  of  wealth, 
but  especially  that  his  heart  is  rich  with  the  feelings  of  brother- 
hood, that  his  ear  is  open  to  the  groan  of  the  sick,  that  his  eyes 
cannot  look  undimmed  upon  the  suffering,  and  that  his  hand 
cannot  shut  itself  against  the  call  of  helpless  men.  These  are 
things  that  give  him  a  regnant  place  in  the  esteem  of  all  good 
men,  and  while  we  value  as  best  we  can  this  great  plant  which 
to-day  he  gives  to  us,  more  than  it  all  we  value  the  man  whose 
heart  conceived  it  and  whose  hand  built  it,  and  from  him  we 
would  learn  something  of  the  lesson  of  good  will  which  he  seems 
so  well  fitted  to  teach.  And  I  am  sure  that  all  present  and  all 
absent  will  unite  truly  with  me  in  expressing  our  assurance  of 
esteem  for  him  who  has  wrought  so  well  among  us  in  the  years 
that  he  has  lived  in  our  midst.  In  every  good  work  he  has  stood 
in  the  hottest  part  of  the  line  of  battle,  his  voice  has  joined  our 
voices  in  the  hymns  we  sing  in  our  temples  of  holy  worship,  his 
prayers  have  been  united  with  ours  that  the  God  of  us  all  would 
keep  us  in  the  right  way,  his  fine  simplicity  of  spirit  and  living 
has  made  him  one  of  us,  while  his  quiet  and  steadfast  faith  in 
Christ  has  given  us  an  inspiring  example  of  Christian  living. 
With  gratitude  we  take  his  gift,  and  with  joy  Vv'e  give  him,  if  it 
is  possible,  a  larger  place  in  our  thankful  hearts." 

The  Morning  Herald,  Durham,  North  CaroHna,  December  3,  1909. 


WATTS  HOSPITAL  OPENING  A 
BRILLIANT  EVENT 

THOUSANDS  VIEW  THE  VARIOUS  ROOMS  AND  LISTEN  TO  ADDRESSES 

THAT  MARKED  THE  EXERCISES — GENEROUS  DONOR  WILL 

MAKE  ENDOWMENT  $200,000 

More  than  looo  people  fell  over  themselves  literally  this  after- 
noon crowding  into  the  varied  rooms  of  the  new  Watts  Hospital 


in  their  efforts  to  hear  all  of  the  addresses  and  take  their  small 
part  in  the  ceremonies  that  marked  its  opening. 

Its  generous  author's  formal  presentation  had  a  sentence  in 
it  that  indicated  a  change  of  community  attitude  toward  sana- 
toriums.  When  he  gave  the  first  hospital  that  stands  next  to 
Trinity  College,  he  said  he  was  greatly  disappointed  in  the  way 
the  people  received  its  advent.  A  corporate  Good  Samaritan 
(though  he  didn't  intimate  as  much)  was  welcomed,  not  as  an 
inn  where  the  pain-worn  traveler  stopped  for  rest,  but  as  a  sec- 
ond-rate butcher  shop  where  exquisite  tortures  were  inflicted  by 
medical  tyros.  The  donor  himself  said  the  first  idea  of  the  public 
was  that  the  hospital  was  a  place  where  men  were  mutilated, 
mostly  by  experimentalists,  and  the  public  feared  them.  That 
was  a  decade  and  a  half  ago.  He  had  lived  to  see  interest  stim- 
ulated in  modern  medical  science  and  had  been  forced  to  en- 
large his  gifts.  Later  he  conceived  the  present  plan,  which  is  a 
finality  with  to-day's  ceremonies. 

In  presenting  the  hospital  Mr.  Watts  first  off"ered  the  deed  to 
the  property  and  then  laid  down  a  certificate  for  1 100,000,  which 
will  be  its  first  endowment.  He  followed  this  with  the  an- 
nouncement that  the  institution  would  need  cash,  and  from 
time  to  time  he  meant  to  furnish  it,  the  amount  that  a  $200,000 
endowment  would  mean. 

The  hospital  was  received  by  James  H.  Southgate  in  an  elo- 
quent resume  of  a  successful  life,  one  which  he  said  has  been 
projected  rightly  in  every  interest  of  the  city.  He  spoke  of  Mr. 
Watts's  benefactions  here,  at  Barium  Springs  Orphanage,  Union 
Theological  Seminary,  and  Elizabeth  College,  all  for  the  com- 
mon good  and  with  no  thought  of  himself.  "He  belongs  to  that 
young  race  of  men,"  Mr.  Southgate  said,  "who  in  our  old  Com- 
monwealth Club  used  to  plan,  when  Durham  was  but  a  manu- 
facturing shanty,  with  the  station  and  the  post-office  as  the 
city's  visiting  places  daily,  a  young  race  of  men  who  laid  such 
foundations  that  no  one,  two,  or  three  generations  of  men  can 
build  such  superstructures  as  to  crush  those  foundations.  Look 
at  that  Maryland  boy,"  Mr.  Southgate  continued,  "and  see  one 
of  the  State's,  one  of  our  nation's,  most  noble  philanthropists." 

[873 


Referring  to  the  wave  of  philanthropy  that  sweeps  the  coun- 
try, he  said:  "Let  it  roll  on.  We  are  living  in  an  age  of  the 
greatest  giving  that  the  world  has  ever  known,  and  from  this 
day  let  us  set  apart  this  magnificent  institution  that  it  may  pro- 
duce the  fruit  of  soundness  in  men." 

Mayor  Griswold  spoke  very  briefly  in  accepting  the  building 
for  the  Board  of  Aldermen,  declaring  that  in  spite  of  the  popular 
fear  of  the  hospitals,  Mr.  Watts  had  announced  in  his  first  re- 
port in  1905,  marking  the  tenth  year,  that  the  building  now 
deserted  for  the  new  hospital  had  grown  inadequate. 

County  Attorney  W.  J.  Brogden  accepted  the  hospital  for 
the  county  commissioners.  He  declared  that  to  be  truly  philan- 
thropic, religion,  science,  and  brotherhood  must  conspire  in  the 
human  heart. 

Dr.  A.  C.  Jordan,  for  the  Medical  Society,  praised  the  gift 
and  read  resolutions  that  the  Medical  Society  had  passed  in 
accepting  the  gift.  The  doctor  declared  that  the  opening  of  the 
institution  sets  a  new  date  in  the  Durham  calendar.  The  brick 
and  mortar  in  the  sanatorium  may  tell  its  material  worth,  but 
he  said  no  estimate  of  its  significance  could  be  made.  Faith, 
hope,  and  love  in  unmeasured  degree  are  in  all  of  the  bricks  and 
walls.  The  gift,  he  said,  imposes  the  obligation  to  live  up  to  its 
fine  spirit  and  makes  receiving  it  in  itself  a  high  duty. 

Dr.  Kilgo  said  that  the  builder  of  this  institution  did  not 
dream  of  erecting  a  monument  to  himself,  but  had  done  it  any 
way,  and  "united  with  the  Saviour  of  mankind  in  the  redemp- 
tion of  mankind.  The  measure  of  service  of  this  institution  will 
be  the  degree  of  fidelity  to  our  duty.  I  wished  when  1  penned 
that  line  that  I  could  rivet  it  upon  your  consciences." 

The  address  of  Dr.  Kilgo  was  immediately  followed  by  an  in- 
spection of  the  hospital. 

There  was  nothing  to  be  added  to  the  day.  Fine  weather, 
fine  interest,  short  and  inspiring  addresses,  and  the  simple  giv- 
ing that  makes  one  believe  that  there  are  folks  who  are  impelled 
to  do  things  from  purely  altruistic  motives,  all  left  the  good 
taste  in  the  system  that  will  not  leave  with  the  break  of  crowd. 

[88J 


FACTS  ABOUT  THE  WATTS  HOSPITAL 

The  Watts  Hospital  was  designed  by  the  late  Bertrand  E. 
Taylor,  of  Boston,  who  died  before  it  reached  completion,  and 
was  the  last  of  a  chain  of  more  than  200  which  he  erected  in  this 
and  the  old  countries.  It  was  built  by  John  T.  Wilson,  of 
Richmond,  the  builder  of  the  Jefferson  Hotel  and  Mutual  Build- 
ing, of  Richmond,  and  many  other  handsome  structures  in  the 
South.  His  class  of  work  is  almost  entirely  reinforced  con- 
crete, and  of  this  the  new  Watts  Hospital  is  made  entirely,  being 
thoroughly  fire-proof  and  of  brick  where  concrete  isn't  used. 
The  main  building  is  three  stories,  but  the  accessories  are  two 
stories,  and  form  now  a  sort  of  triangle,  and  not  connected  with 
the  hospital  building  except  by  a  kind  of  arcade.  The  laundry 
and  engine-room  are  together,  the  laundry  being  over  the 
engine. 

The  hospital  is  beautifully  situated  over  a  twenty-five-acre 
campus,  half  a  mile  west  of  Trinity  College  and  the  highest 
place  about  the  city.  It  is  easily  seen  by  travelers,  and  even 
at  that  distance  can  be  seen  to  be  a  magnificent  institution. 
To  the  rear  of  the  building  Mr.  Watts  is  developing  a  park  of 
twelve  or  more  acres,  something  that  will  be  a  rendezvous  for 
those  who  live  there  and  those  who  come  to  be  with  their  sick. 

THE  HOSPITAL 
The  sanatorium  itself  is  the  admiration  of  every  man  who  has 
seen  it,  and  there  is  said  generally  to  be  nothing  in  all  the  South 
its  superior.  New  Orleans  and  Baltimore  are  accredited  with 
having  no  better.  Though  designed  for  175,000  originally,  its 
first  cost  has  gone  to  |2 1 7,000  for  site  and  buildings,  and  a  trip 
through  it  will  relieve  any  possible  impression  of  extravagance 
in  the  work.  Mr.  Watts  may  be  said  to  have  been  its  superin- 
tendent. The  plans  were  the  architect's,  but  his  own  mind  has 
evolved  the  structure  and  equipment  to  its  present  degree  of 
magnificence. 

WILL  BUILD  NURSES'  HOME 
Mr.  Watts  has  determined  to  erect  next  spring  a  nurses'  home, 
which  will  be  in  appearance,  externally,  the  exact  replica  of  the 

[89] 


chanty  wards  in  the  building  that  sits  farthest  south.  When 
completed,  the  chain  will  be  one  beautifully  symmetrical,  and 
the  cost  will  be  run  up  to  $250,000  for  buildings  alone. 

One  lonely  ward  is  set  off  for  the  contagious  disease  patients. 
None  of  such  will  be  taken,  but  it  can't  always  be  avoided,  and 
treatment  of  such  will  always  be  necessary.  There  is  a  chemical 
laboratory,  a  dietitian's  room,  this  lady  being  an  expert  in  the 
foods  allowed  convalescents  and  there  for  no  other  purpose. 
There  is  every  other  room  that  anybody  ever  thought  necessary, 
and  nobody  who  has  gone  through  the  building  has  been  able 
to  make  a  suggestion  as  to  one  of  its  needs. 

ITS  CONTROL 

There  will  be  no  visible  head  to  the  institution.  It  is  as  much 
the  county's  as  the  city's,  and  the  Durham  Medical  Society  will 
control  it.  What  they  do  in  the  way  of  operations,  employment 
of  other  physicians,  and  the  like  will  be  their  own  concern.  Mr. 
Watts  gives  this  institution  to  the  ill-fortunate  of  his  county 
with  the  simple  recommendation  that  no  worthy  poor  be  shut 
out  from  its  blessings.  He  builds  a  nurses'  home  that  none  may 
be  denied  their  comfort  in  their  poverty.  And  all  of  this  is  done 
with  the  true  charity  that  is  not  puffed  up. 

The  simple  ceremonies  which  the  public  witnessed  to-day 
were  in  keeping  with  his  desires.  No  show  at  the  Academy  of 
Music  would  be  permitted,  and  everything  was  had  at  the  home 
of  the  hospital.  Representing  every  phase  of  life  that  will  have 
actual  share  in  the  hospital's  blessings  there  was  some  one  to 
make  a  speech  of  acceptance  for  the  gift,  which  is  one  of  the 
largest  that  any  resident  of  North  Carolina  has  ever  been  able  to 
make  in  behalf  of  the  least  of  men. 

Greensboro  Daily  News,  December  3,  1909. 


Coo] 


HONORS 


"/  am  among  you  as  one  that  serveth" 


GEORGE  W.  WATTS 

ELECTED  MODERATOR  OF  THE  SYNOD 

OF  NORTH  CAROLINA 


'he  synod  honored  itself  in  the  nomination  of 
George  W.  Watts  as  its  Moderator.  Dr.  Hill 
disqualified  a  good  many  of  the  brethren  by  say- 
ing that  it  was  necessary,  on  this  occasion  of 
feminine  numerousness,  to  have  a  good-looking 
man  as  Moderator.  There  were  other  pleasant  things  said  about 
Mr.  Watts,  but  what  we  should  like  to  have  understood  is  that 
the  Synod  of  North  Carolina  did  not  elect  him  because  he  is  a 
rich  man  who  has  given  of  his  means  to  the  causes  of  the  church. 
It  has  recognized  what  has  been  known  about  him  for  many 
years,  his  simple,  unaiTected  piety  and  Christian  zeal.  It  was  not 
the  building  of  a  church  for  his  factory  employees  and  friends  so 
much  as  the  fact  that  Sunday  after  Sunday,  year  in  and  year 
out,  wet  and  dry  and  hot  and  cold,  he  is  to  be  found  at  his  post 
teaching  a  Sunday-school  class  there.  It  is  not  that  he  has 
made  large  gifts  that  could  not  be  kept  from  the  knowledge  of 
men,  but  that  the  members  of  the  Synod  have  come  to  learn 
through  the  years  that  he  is  guilty  of  left-handed  ignorance  of 
right-hand  beneficence.  In  these  days  of  the  revelation  of 
unsavory  things  about  the  self-indulgent  rich,  of  dishonest 
things  about  those  who  have  hasted  to  be  rich,  it  is  refreshing 

1:93: 


to  know  a  man  of  Mr.  Watts's  type.  And  it  is  the  simple  truth 
that  the  Synod,  while  grateful  for  his  benefactions,  is  more 
grateful  for  the  abiding  influence  of  his  Christian  character. 

Presbyterian  Standard,  Charlotte,  North  Carolina,  November  1,  1905. 


1:94: 


OGLETHORPE  UNIVERSITY,  GEORGIA 

March  25,  1921. 
Mrs.  George  W.  Watts, 
Durham,  N.  C. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Watts: 

As  1  wrote  you  a  few  days  ago,  our  Board  has  determined  to 
confer  the  Degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws  upon  your  husband  at  the 
approaching  commencement  of  the  University,  in  recognition 
of  his  outstanding  services  in  the  promotion  of  education  and 
the  founding  of  philanthropic  and  religious  institutions. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Board  held  yesterday  the  recommenda- 
tions previously  made  were  considered  and,  by  unanimous  ac- 
tion, the  Board  decided  that  the  lamented  death  of  Mr.  Watts 
should  in  no  way  change  their  intentions,  but  that  the  degree 
which  had  already,  in  effect,  been  conferred,  should  be  an- 
nounced on  Commencement  Day,  and  the  diploma,  properly 
engrossed,  forwarded  to  yourself  at  that  time. 

I  think  that  you  will  be  very  much  interested  in  learning  that 
this  is  the  third  Degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws  given  by  Oglethorpe 
University,  the  first  being  to  President  Woodrow  Wilson,  a  copy 
of  whose  acceptance  I  am  enclosing,  believing  that  you  would 
like  to  keep  it  for  historical  interest,  and  the  other  will  be  con- 
ferred on  Bishop  Gailor,  who  preaches  our  Baccalaureate  Ser- 
mon for  us  in  May. 

The  Board  asks  me  to  convey  to  you  their  genuine  sympathy, 
for  they,  also,  are  sorrowed  by  the  loss  of  so  good  a  friend  and 
so  true  and  loyal  a  comrade  in  this  great  enterprise. 

Heartily  yours, 

Thornwell  Jacobs, 

President. 


[95] 


LIST  OF  CLUBS  TO  WHICH  MR.  WATTS  BELONGED 

Apavvamis  Club,  Rye,  New  York 

Automobile  Club  of  America 

Baltimore  Country  Club,  Baltimore,  Md. 

Colonnade  Club,  University  of  Virginia 

Commonwealth  Club,  Durham,  N.  C. 

^  Country  Club,  Durham,  N.  C. 

Quail  Roost  Gun  Club,  Durham,  N.  C. 

Seaview  Golf  Club,  Absecon,  N.  J. 

Seniors  Golf  Club,  Palm  Beach,  Fla. 

Tin  Whistlers,  Pinehurst,  N.  C. 

Winter  Golf  League  of  Advertising  Interests,  Pinehurst,  N.  C. 


1:96] 


RESOLUTIONS 

SUNDAY-SCHOOLS,  MISSIONS,  EDUCATIONAL 


> 


u 


z 


'And  Jems  called  a  little  child  unto  Him  and  set  him  in  the  midst  of  them' 


GEORGE  W.  WATTS  AS  A  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  WORKER 


;Y  ACQUAINTANCE  with  Mr.  Watts  reaches 
back  full  twenty-five  years  and  came  about  be- 
cause of  his  interest  in  the  Sunday-school  work. 
1  met  him  first  in  connection  with  the  Interna- 
^i_^  tional  Sunday-school  Association.  In  the  early 
days  he  became  a  member  of  the  Executive  Committee,  repre- 
senting the  State  of  North  Carolina.  According  to  a  ruling  that 
was  then  in  force,  when  anybody  had  been  a  member  of  the 
International  Committee  for  twenty  years,  he  was  constituted 
a  Life  Member.  Mr.  Watts  was  elected  to  this  position  at  the 
Buft'alo  Convention,  in  1918,  indicating  that  he  had  served 
twenty  years  prior  to  that  time.  He  was  always,  ever  since  I 
have  known  him,  officially  connected  with  the  Sunday-school 
work  of  his  own  State,  and  was  superintendent  of  his  own 
Sunday-school  in  Durham. 

I  have  had  opportunity  to  become  well  acquainted  with  this 
dear  brother  through  years  of  fellowship  and  association,  hav- 
ing crossed  the  ocean  and  traveled  in  foreign  lands  with  him. 
This  gave  me  an  opportunity  to  know  him  in  a  very  intimate 
way.  I  think  I  have  never  known  a  man  in  my  life,  of  his  finan- 
cial standing  in  the  world  and  wide  connection  with  great  busi- 
ness enterprises,  and  with  all  possessing  such  large  ability  as 
an  administrator  of  great  afi"airs  and  also  as  a  Christian  worker, 
who  was  as  quiet,  modest,  and  retiring  as  Mr.  Watts.  While 
he  brought  great  things  to  pass,  he  never  sought  the  credit  for 


anything  he  did,  but  passed  it  on  to  others  in  a  gracious  way 
that  showed  the  bigness  of  his  heart  and  his  loyalty  to  his  Mas- 
ter, of  Whom  it  was  said  "He  pleased  not  Himself." 

To  know  Mr.  Watts  was  to  love  him.  His  convictions  were 
always  strong,  and  everybody  knew  he  meant  just  what  he  said, 
and  yet  he  was  tender  as  a  woman,  always  ready  to  lend  a  help- 
ing hand  wherever  needed.  This  was  shown  in  his  munificent 
gifts  for  the  relief  of  suffering  at  home  and  abroad  and  his  great 
devotion  to  the  missionary  enterprises  of  the  church.  His 
name  will  live  as  long  as  time  lasts,  because  of  his  consistent 
Christian  life.    The  influence  of  such  lives  never  perishes. 

Marion  Lawrence, 
Consulting  General  Secretary, 
International  Sunday-school  Association. 


C'oo] 


RESOLUTIONS  OF  THE  FIRST  PRESBYTERIAN  SUN- 
DAY-SCHOOL ON  THE  DEATH  OF  MR.  GEORGE  W. 
WATTS,  WHO  FOR  THIRTY-FIVE  YEARS  WAS  SU- 
PERINTENDENT OF  THE  SCHOOL 

We  come  to-day  with  one  accord  to  give  voice  first  of  all  to  the 
deep  and  sore  personal  loss  which  has  come  to  every  one  of  us 
in  the  taking  away  of  him  whom  we  have  for  the  thirty-five 
years  of  his  splendid  leadership  as  our  Superintendent  looked 
up  to  and  respected  and  loved  as  the  very  heart  and  soul  of  our 
school.  God,  the  Father,  had  first  place  with  him  always,  and 
he  consecrated  to  His  service  fully  the  splendid  powers  which 
gave  him  early  in  life  a  leading  place  among  the  industrial  and 
financial  leaders  of  the  nation.  He  was  one  of  the  commanding 
leaders  of  our  church,  and  he  devoted  not  only  his  means  but  his 
personal  service  and  thought  generously  to  every  feature  of  the 
church  work. 

The  Sunday-school,  however,  made  the  strongest  appeal  to 
him.  He  looked  upon  it  as  the  institution  of  the  church  which 
not  only  trained  the  children  and  led  them  to  God,  but  he 
thought  of  it  as  a  great  Bible  school  which  was  for  all  the  peo- 
ple, a  place  where  all  should  learn  to  know  God  and  thus  be  led  to 
love  Him  and  serve  Him.  With  this  conception  of  the  supreme 
importance  of  the  work  of  the  Sunday-school,  he  devoted  his 
best  thought  and  interest  to  it,  and  so  deeply  and  broadly  did 
he  think  and  work  in  this  field  that  he  became  years  ago  one  of 
the  prominent  world  Sunday-school  leaders. 

He  brought  to  this  Sunday-school  the  vision,  inspiration,  and 
direction  of  such  a  leader,  and  gave  to  it  in  this  leadership 
a  very  distinctive  place  among  the  Sunday-schools  of  this 
country. 

[10.] 


The  welfare  and  progress  of  this  school  were  a  passion  with 
him,  and  he  never  suffered  any  of  his  personal  or  business  in- 
terests to  interfere  with  his  work  here  among  us.  Those  of  us 
who  knew  him  best  felt  for  years  that  of  all  the  various  activi- 
ties of  his  life,  his  work  and  leadership  in  this  school  had  the 
first  place.  His  cheering  smile  and  affectionate  handclasp  for 
thirty-five  years  made  this  a  happy  place  for  hundreds  of  girls 
and  boys  and  men  and  women. 

Promptness,  punctuality  in  meeting  every  obligation,  and 
discharging  every  task  with  thoroughness  as  soon  as  it  came  to 
hand,  early  in  life  ceased  to  be  senses  and  became  second  nature 
to  him.  He  preached  these  things  here  and  lived  them  among 
us  so  perfectly  as  to  bring  power  to  this  school,  and  inspiration 
and  blessing  and  strength  to  many  lives  who  were  privileged  to 
touch  him  here.  His  vigorous,  forceful,  vital,  and  lovable  per- 
sonality drew  us  toward  him,  and  inspired  us  with  impelling 
force  to  more  and  more  faithful  service.  His  loyalty  and  devo- 
tion to  this  school,  and,  above  all,  his  deep  and  abiding  faith  in 
our  Lord  and  his  love  and  service  for  Him,  made  this  a  place 
where  little  children  and  men  and  women  learned  to  love  the 
Master  and  to  consecrate  their  lives  to  Him  in  service. 

We  come  in  deep  grief  and  with  a  profound  sense  of  our  un- 
paralleled loss  in  the  death  of  this  noble  man  of  God  whom  we 
loved  so  dearly  and  who  has  led  us  so  faithfully  through  all  these 
years.  We  bow,  however,  in  deep  submission  to  the  will  of  the 
Almighty  God,  and  with  hearts  grateful  to  Him  that  He  has 
given  us  through  these  long  years  the  blessing  of  the  leadership 
of  His  great  servant  and  of  our  noble  and  true  friend.  We  shall 
cherish  his  memory  forever,  and  we  pray  God  that  He  may 
give  us  the  strength  and  will  to  follow  his  great  example  and  to 
honor  his  memory  in  carrying  on  the  work  which  has  fallen 
from  his  hands. 

William  D.  Carmichael, 
Chairman  of  the  Committee. 


C'oO 


FROM  THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
ASSOCIATION  IN  CONVENTION  ASSEMBLED 

Whereas,  our  highly  esteemed  and  beloved  Executive  Com- 
mitteeman, George  W.  Watts,  of  Durham,  passed  away  on  the 
yth  day  of  March,  192 1 ;  and  whereas,  for  more  than  ten  years 
he  was  a  faithful,  generous,  and  loyal  friend  to  the  North  Caro- 
lina Sunday-school  Association  and  to  Sunday-school  work 
everywhere : 

Therefore,  be  it  Resolved  by  The  North  Carolina  Sunday- 
school  Association  in  convention  assembled:  That  in  the 
death  of  George  W.  Watts  the  North  Carolina  Sunday-school 
Association  has  lost  a  staunch  and  liberal  friend,  the  State  of 
North  Carolina  a  useful  and  distinguished  citizen,  and  our 
Christian  forces  a  true  and  faithful  leader; 

That  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  be  spread  upon  the  minutes 
of  this  Convention,  and  a  copy  sent  to  the  family  of  our  de- 
ceased brother. 

The  above  resolutions  were  adopted  at  the  last  session  of  the 
State  Sunday-school  Convention,  Raleigh,  North  Carolina, 
April  1 2- 1 3- 1 4,  1 92 1. 

D.W.Sims, 
General  Superintendent. 


C'ob;] 


PENNSYLVANIA  STATE  SABBATH  SCHOOL 
ASSOCIATION 

Philadelphia,  Pa.,  March  ii,  1921. 
Mrs.  Sara  V.  Watts, 
Durham,  North  Carolina. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Watts: 

Through  the  International  Office  I  have  been  advised  of  the 
death  of  your  good  husband.  This  is  indeed  a  great  shock  to 
me,  as  it  is  to  the  many  Sunday-school  workers  throughout  the 
country  who  knew  your  husband  and  learned  to  love  him. 

My  last  contact  with  him  was  in  Tokyo,  on  the  floor  of  that 
great  convention,  as  we  were  raising  money  for  the  World's 
work.  He  was  greatly  interested  and  enjoyed  that  service  seem- 
ingly more  than  any  of  the  rest. 

It  fell  to  my  lot  to  make  the  appeal,  and  I  never  will  forget 
the  good  words  he  gave  to  me  in  appreciation  of  the  way  in 
which  the  service  was  handled. 

It  is  hard  to  lose  loved  ones,  and  this  letter  of  sympathy,  I 
know,  is  far  from  being  adequate  in  its  consolation,  for  words 
are  such  meaningless  things  at  a  time  like  this.  However,  I  do 
want  you  to  know  that  the  friends  of  your  good  husband 
suffer  this  loss  with  you,  and  unitedly  will  hold  you  tenderly 
in  prayer  to  the  Throne  of  Grace  for  the  strength  that  you  need 
in  this  hour. 

Mrs.  Landes  joins  me  in  this  letter,  and  we  both  commend 
you  to  the  love  of  our  Elder  Brother,  who  knows  how  to  give 
consolation  at  such  a  time  as  this. 

Believe  me  to  be, 

Very  sincerely, 

W.  G.  Landes. 


C'04] 


CALIFORNIA  STATE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL 
ASSOCIATION 

San  Francisco,  Cal., 
March  21,  1921. 
Mrs.  Geo.  W.  Watts, 
Durham,  N.  C. 

Dear  Mrs.  Watts: 

Just  a  line  to  extend  the  sympathy  of  the  Sunday-school 
workers  of  California  to  you  and  family  during  your  bereave- 
ment. I  knew  Mr.  Watts  personally,  and  he  has  left  a  rich  in- 
heritance of  Christian  character  to  his  family. 

Again  extending  the  sympathy  of  our  Sunday-school  work- 
ers on  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  praying  God's  blessing  to  rest  upon 
you  and  yours,  I  remain. 

Sincerely  yours, 

CALIFORNIA  STATE  SUNDAY- 
SCHOOL  ASSOCIATION 
C.  R.  Fisher, 
General  Superintendent. 


1^05  2 


MARYLAND  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  ASSOCIATION 

Baltimore,  Md., 
March  1 1,  1921. 
Mrs.  George  W.  Watts, 
Durham,  N.  C. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Watts: 

Dr.  Pearce  informs  us  that  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  Interna- 
tional staff,  in  the  person  of  your  husband,  has  fallen.  A  great 
record  of  a  quarter  of  a  century,  however,  remains.  Your  hus- 
band could  not  have  been  in  a  greater  work,  as  the  Sunday- 
school  work  is  the  greatest  of  which  the  human  mind  can  con- 
ceive. 

Please  accept,  therefore,  the  deepest  sympathy  of  the  State 
of  Maryland  in  your  bereavement. 

Sincerely  yours, 

Abner  B.  Brown, 
General  Secretary. 


i:'o6] 


MAINE  STATE  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  ASSOCIATION 

Portland,  Maine, 
March  1 1,  1921. 
Mrs.  Sara  V.  Watts, 
Durham,  N.  C. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Watts: 

I  have  received  word  this  morning  through  the  International 
office  at  Chicago  of  the  death  of  your  husband,  who  for  so  long 
a  time  was  an  honored  member  of  the  International  Executive 
Committee. 

Please  accept  the  sincere  regrets  and  sympathy  of  the  Maine 
State  Sunday-school  Association.  All  Association  workers  will 
feel  a  deep  sense  of  loss  in  the  passing  of  your  distinguished 
husband. 

Very  sincerely, 

E.  H.  Brewster, 
General  Secretary. 


i:'07] 


WISCONSIN  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  ASSOCIATION 

Oshkosh,  Wisconsin, 

March  12,  1921. 
Mrs.  Sara  V.  Watts, 
Durham,  North  Carolina. 

Dear  Mrs.  Watts: 

I  am  just  advised  by  Mr.  W.  C.  Pearce  of  your  sad  bereave- 
ment. 

Any  words  Vi'hich  I  might  offer  seem  like  formality,  but  I 
wish  you  to  know  that  I  sympathize  with  you  at  this  time. 

There  is  only  one  source  to  whom  we  can  go  in  such  times, 
and  I  am  sure  the  Master  would  never  fail  us. 

With  very  sincere  respect,  I  am. 

Yours  very  truly, 

William  Mainland, 
President,  Wisconsin  Sunday-school  Association. 


[.08] 


NEW  JERSEY  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  ASSOCIATION 

Newark,  N.  J.,  March  12,  1921. 
Mrs.  Sara  V.  Watts, 
Durham,  N.  C. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Watts: 

A  letter  from  Mr.  Pearce,  our  Acting  General  Secretary, 
brings  us  the  sad  news  of  your  husband's  death.  Though  it  was 
not  my  privilege  to  have  had  fellowship  with  him  personally,  I 
have  known  through  our  State  leaders  of  his  very  excellent 
character  and  work,  and  want  to  express  the  sympathy  of  the 
State  workers  of  New  Jersey  as  well  as  my  own  personally  to 
you  and  say  that  we  share  with  you  the  feeling  of  the  loss  of  a 
great  and  good  man  in  the  Master's  Kingdom. 

You  of  course  have  the  comfort  and  consciousness  of  his 
splendid  Christian  character  and  the  great  service  he  had  ren- 
dered to  the  cause  of  Christ. 

Commending  you  to  Him  Who  careth  for  you,  I  am, 

Sincerely  yours, 

Jos.  E.  Appley. 


C'OQ] 


FROM  THE  EXECUTIVE  COMiMlTTEE  OF  THE 

BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES  OF 

UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

George  W.  Watts 

The  Executive  Committee  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Union 
Theological  Seminary,  in  session  for  the  first  time  since  the 
death  of  Mr.  George  W.  Watts,  a  member  of  this  Committee,  de- 
sires to  place  on  record  its  deep  and  keen  sense  of  sorrow  and  be- 
reavement occasioned  by  his  death,  which  occurred  in  Durham, 
North  Carolina,  March  7,  192 1. 

For  many  years  Mr.  Watts  was  the  efficient  President  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees  of  the  Seminary,  and  in  addition  to  his  great 
liberality  to  the  institution  he  brought  to  the  meetings  of  the 
Board  the  benefit  of  extensive  business  experience  and  the  force 
of  his  noble  Christian  character. 

He  was  likewise  an  honored  and  valued  member  of  this  Ex- 
ecutive Committee,  and  when  able  to  attend  the  meetings  in 
the  interval  between  the  Board  meetings,  by  his  genial  person- 
ality, his  fine  business  sense,  his  deep  interest  in  the  things  of 
the  kingdom,  his  large  outlook  upon  the  world,  he  contributed 
much  to  the  results  of  the  deliberations  and  the  wisdom  of  the 
Committee's  actions. 

An  earnest  and  devoted  Christian  gentleman,  an  active 
church  worker,  a  most  liberal  benefactor  to  the  Seminary  and 
to  all  worthy  benevolences,  known  and  honored  throughout  the 
church  as  well  as  in  his  own  city,  he  was  a  faithful  exponent 
of  the  religion  of  his  Master  Whom  he  served,  and  his  death 
is  mourned  by  the  whole  church,  and  especially  by  this 
Seminary. 


Be  it  Resolved: 

1.  That  in  the  death  of  Mr.  Watts  the  Seminary  mourns 
the  loss  of  one  who  had  endeared  himself  to  us  all  and  who 
combined  such  deep  spiritual  power  with  such  fine  business 
ability  which  he  always  used  gladly  for  the  Master. 

2.  That  we  bow  in  humble  submission  to  Him  Who  doeth 
all  things  well,  and  say,  "Even  so,  Father,  for  so  it  seemeth 
good  in  Thy  sight." 

3.  That  we  express  to  Mrs.  Watts  and  to  his  daughter,  Mrs. 
John  Sprunt  Hill,  our  deepest  sympathy,  and  "commend  them 
to  God  and  to  the  word  of  His  grace,  which  is  able  to  build  them 
up  and  give  them  an  inheritance  among  all  them  that  are  sanc- 
tified." 


C'"] 


RESOLUTIONS  OF  THE  EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE 
OF  FOREIGN  MISSIONS  OF  THE  PRESBYTERIAN 
CHURCH  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  UPON  THE  RE- 
CENT DEATH  OF  MR.  GEORGE  W.  WATTS 

The  Executive  Committee  of  Foreign  Missions  desires  to  put 
on  record  its  profound  appreciation  of  the  noble  missionary 
spirit  of  Mr.  George  W.  Watts  and  of  his  eminent  services  to 
the  missionary  cause.  Among  his  numerous  Foreign  Mission 
gifts  may  be  mentioned  the  annual  $13,000  which  for  many 
years  he  gave  for  the  support  of  the  missionaries  of  the  Soon- 
chun  station  in  Korea,  and  which  eventually  he  made  perma- 
nent by  an  endowment  fund  of  1256,600.  He  also  supported 
missionaries  in  Cuba  and  Africa,  and  recently  donated  $48,000 
as  an  endowment  fund  for  the  permanent  support  of  a  mission- 
ary pair  in  the  latter  country. 

To  all  the  missionaries  he  was  a  loyal  and  sympathetic  friend, 
and  in  an  especial  manner  to  those  whom  he  supported,  invari- 
ably and  promptly  answering  their  letters  and  affectionately 
interested  in  all  that  concerned  them. 

We  warmly  appreciate  and  highly  value  his  public  testimony, 
given  on  his  return  from  his  recent  trip  to  Korea,  that  the  suc- 
cess and  extent  of  the  work  there  had  far  exceeded  his  expecta- 
tions, and  that  he  considered  his  missionary  investment  in  that 
country  the  most  satisfactory  investment  he  had  ever  made. 

Throughout  the  years  he  has  been  the  constant  friend  of  the 
Executive  Committee  of  Foreign  Missions,  aiding  its  work  not 
only  by  his  means  but  by  his  wise  counsel.  For  several  months 
he  was  a  member  of  the  Committee,  making  monthly  the  long 
trip  from  Durham  to  Nashville  and  back,  and  winning  the  ad- 


u 


miring  affection  of  his  fellow-members  by  the  soundness  of  his 
judgment  and  the  charm  of  his  personality.  In  their  varied 
relations  with  him  the  Foreign  Mission  Committee  always 
found  him  the  golden-hearted  Christian  gentleman,  walking 
humbly  in  the  steps  and  illustrating  the  spirit  of  Him  Who 
came  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister. 

To  his  loved  ones  we  express  our  sincere  sympathy  in  their 
bereavement,  and  we  pray  that  upon  his  descendants  to  the 
third  and  fourth  generation  may  rest  a  double  portion  of  his 
spirit. 

Egbert  W.  Smith, 
Executive  Secretary. 


C"3] 


FROM   THE   EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE  OF  HOME 

MISSIONS  OF  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

In  Memoriam 

George  W.  Watts,  of  Durham,  North  Carolina, 
March  7,  1921 

In  the  removal  by  death  from  the  scene  of  his  earthly  labors 
of  George  W.  Watts,  our  beloved  and  worthy  fellovv'-worker, 
the  Executive  Committee  of  Flome  Missions  has  lost  one  of  its 
most  sympathetic  and  noblest  friends.  About  ten  years  ago  he 
voluntarily  assumed  the  support  of  Stuart  Robinson  School  at 
Blackey,  Kentucky,  and  subsequently  expressed  his  purpose  at 
the  proper  time  of  taking  a  worthy  part  in  giving  this  institu- 
tion permanent  and  adequate  equipment  in  appropriate  build- 
ings. Flis  benefactions  were  not  confined,  however,  to  this  one 
school.  On  several  occasions  of  his  own  accord  he  made  sub- 
stantial contributions  to  the  Oklahoma  Presbyterian  College, 
and  in  all  the  great  enterprises  undertaken  by  the  Home  Mis- 
sion Committee  he  seldom  failed  to  express  his  interest  by  gen- 
erous gifts.  He  did  not  need  to  be  urged  and  he  did  not  give 
grudgingly.  One  of  the  delightful  features  of  his  liberality  was 
the  cordial  and  hearty  terms  in  which  he  expressed  his  pleasure 
in  making  his  contributions. 

The  breadth  of  his  sympathies  and  the  magnanimity  of  his 
heart  did  not  permit  the  narrowing  of  his  benefactions  to  even 
a  few  worthy  causes.  He  was  a  public  benefactor  and  a  philan- 
thropist of  world-wide  sympathies.  His  loss  will  be  felt  not 
simply  in  his  community  and  denomination,  but  in  interna- 
tional spheres  and  operations. 

C"4: 


To  the  world  he  was  known  for  his  conspicuous  benefactions, 
but  to  his  church  and  to  his  wide  circle  of  intimate  friends  his 
most  distinguishing  trait  was  his  nobility  of  character  as  an  ideal 
Christian  gentleman. 

"His  life  was  gentle,  and  the  elements 
So  mixed  in  him,  that  Nature  might  stand  up 
And  say  to  all  the  world,  'This  was  a  man.'  " 

With  mingled  emotions  of  sorrow  and  gladness  the  Executive 
Committee  records  its  profound  appreciation  of  his  generosity 
to  its  work  and  its  high  appraisement  of  his  Christian  character. 

Resolved: 

That  we  accept  with  sincere  gratitude  his  generous  bequest 
to  the  Executive  Committee,  and  that  the  same  be  set  aside  as  a 
Permanent  Fund  and  designated  "The  George  W.  Watts  Foun- 
dation" for  carrying  on  the  mission  supported  by  him  during 
his  earthly  life. 

That  this  Memorial  be  entered  on  our  records  as  the  expres- 
sion of  our  testimony  to  his  genuine  worth  as  a  man  and  a 
benefactor  for  the  benefit  of  future  generations — an  example 
of  the  highest  ideals  of  Christian  life. 

That  a  copy  of  this  Memorial  be  furnished  his  bereaved  fam- 
ily with  the  assurance  of  our  tender  sympathy  in  this  their 
sorrow,  shared  alike  by  us  and  the  whole  church. 

Unanimously  adopted  by  the  Executive  Committee  in  its 
regular  monthly  session,  April  12,  1921. 

S.  L.  Morris, 
Secretary. 


n"5] 


RESOLUTIONS  PASSED  BY  THE  LAYMEN'S  CON- 
VENTION OF  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

The  Laymen's  Convention  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in 
the  United  States,  in  session  at  Greenville,  South  Carolina,  has 
heard  with  great  sorrow  of  the  death  of  Mr.  George  W.  Watts. 

We  feel  that  a  prince  and  great  man  in  Israel  has  fallen  this 
day. 

We  would  record  our  high  estimate  of  his  character,  our  pro- 
found gratitude  for  his  noble  service  to  our  church,  and  our 
deep  sorrow  at  his  loss  to  our  work.  Every  department  of  our 
church  work  has  felt  the  inspiration  of  his  service,  the  blessing 
of  his  mature  judgment,  and  the  help  of  his  princely  gifts. 

We  extend  to  his  bereaved  family  our  most  sincere  sympathy 
in  their  sore  loss. 

May  the  God  of  all  grace  most  tenderly  comfort  them. 

C.  A.  Rowland, 

Chairman. 


["6] 


FROM  THE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS  OF 
MISSION  COURT 

MEMORIAL  OF  MR.  GEORGE  W.  WATTS 

The  Board  of  Directors  of  Mission  Court  has  since  its  last 
meeting  sustained  a  heavy  loss  in  the  death  of  Mr.  George  W. 
Watts,  a  member  of  this  body  from  the  time  of  its  organization. 
His  great  abilities,  his  wisdom  in  counsel,  his  deep  interest  in 
missions,  and  his  concern  for  the  well-being  of  our  workers  in 
foreign  lands  made  him  a  specially  valuable  member  of  an  or- 
ganization which  has  for  its  object  the  promotion  of  the  health, 
comfort,  and  efficiency  of  our  devoted  missionaries.  We  lament 
the  loss  of  a  colleague  of  large  vision  and  loving  heart  and  liberal 
hand,  a  truly  great  servant  of  God,  honored  and  beloved  by  all 
who  knew  him.  We  record  our  gratitude  for  all  that  he  did  for 
the  cause  of  foreign  missions;  we  rejoice  in  his  example  and  his 
abiding  influence,  and  we  pray  that  we  who  remain  may  emu- 
late his  consecration  and  zeal  in  carrying  out  the  Great  Com- 
mission. 

Mrs.  George  Randolph  Cannon, 

Secretary. 


C'>73 


RESOLUTIONS  OF  SESSION  OF  FIRST  PRESBYTE- 
RIAN CHURCH,  DURHAM,  NORTH  CAROLINA,  RE- 
GARDING THE  DEPARTURE  FROM  THIS  LIFE  OF 
RULING  ELDER  GEORGE  W.  WATTS,  MARCH  7,  1921 

Inasmuch  as  our  Heavenly  Father  hath  removed  from  our 
midst  by  death  Ruling  Elder  George  W.  Watts,  this  Session,  of 
which  he  was  an  honored  and  esteemed  member  for  thirty-two 
years,  hereby  records : 

First.  Its  humble  submission  to  the  wisdom  of  God  in  call- 
ing our  beloved  brother  to  that  rest  which  remaineth  for  the 
people  of  God. 

Second.  After  years  of  close  and  intimate  fellowship  and 
service  with  him,  we  express  our  profound  conviction  that  God 
gives  to  the  church  few  men,  either  as  members  or  officers,  who 
are  so  devoted  to  duty  or  faithful  and  efficient  in  service  as  our 
departed  brother  was. 

Third.  We  esteemed  him  for  his  wise  counsel  and  broad 
vision  regarding  the  Master's  Kingdom  at  home  and  abroad, 
and  having  depended  on  his  prudent  judgment  so  many  years, 
we  keenly  feel  our  loss  and  deeply  mourn  his  departure. 

Fourth.  It  is  the  sense  of  this  Session  that  his  splendid  in- 
fluence and  example  will  abide  for  years  in  the  hearts  and  lives 
of  this  people  whom  he  loved  and  for  whom  he  spent  and  was 
spent  freely. 

Fifth.  We  hereby  record  our  deep  conviction  that  his  in- 
telligent interest  in  the  outer  provinces  of  our  Lord's  Kingdom 
has  done  much  to  arouse  and  stimulate  an  abiding  interest  in 
the  cause  of  both  Home  and  Foreign  Missions. 

Sixth.     His  unfailing  interest  in  the  young,  especially  in  the 


u 


u 


Sunday-school,  has  left  a  deep,  earnest,  spiritual  impression, 
not  only  on  those  of  his  own  generation,  but  through  a  genera- 
tion now  arising  who  call  him  blessed. 

Seventh.  We  express  our  deep  sympathy  to  his  family,  and 
commend  them  to  the  gentle  care  and  abundant  love  and  com- 
fort of  our  Heavenly  Father. 

Subscribed  by 

David  Scanlon,  Moderator. 
J.  R.  Patton,  Clerk  of  Session. 


c:"93 


FROM  THE  BOARD  OF  DEACONS  OF  THE 

FIRST  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  OF 

DURHAM,  NORTH  CAROLINA 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Deacons  of  the  First  Presbyterian 
Church,  of  Durham,  the  following  resolutions  were  adopted: 

The  death  of  George  W.  Watts  brings  him  a  reward  for  which 
he  had  labored  throughout  his  life,  the  priceless  inheritance  of 
a  place  among  God's  elect;  but  as  our  friend  and  co-worker, 
his  passing  causes  us  the  very  deepest  sorrow  and  a  full  realiza- 
tion of  our  great  personal  loss. 

From  the  very  earliest  period  of  life  he  heard  the  call  of 
Christ,  "Follow  Me,"  and  until  the  end  was  a  consistent  disci- 
ple of  the  Master.  His  great  soul  was  the  key  to  the  earthly 
possessions  with  which  God  had  blessed  him,  and  at  home  and 
abroad  he  spent  his  life  in  spreading  the  Gospel  and  helping 
those  who  could  not  help  themselves. 

Few  men  have  lived  who  reached  the  heights  of  Christian 
development  as  did  our  departed  friend  and  associate.  We 
can  exalt  his  memory  best  by  undertaking  to  carry  on  the  work 
which  was  so  close  to  his  heart,  and  this  we  do  under  the  in- 
spiring influence  and  example  he  set  before  us  in  life. 

We  extend  to  the  bereaved  family  our  deep  sympathy  and 
direct  that  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  be  sent  to  them,  and  a 
copy  spread  upon  the  minutes  of  this  Board. 

T.  C.  Worth, 
W.  G.  Bramham, 

L.    D.    KlRKLAND. 


C'^o] 


First  Presbyterian  Church  (the  Second  Church) 
and  Sundav-school 


FROM  THE  WOMAN'S  AUXILIARY,  FIRST 
PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

Durham,  N.  C, 
April  9,  1 92 1. 
My  dear  Mrs.  Watts: 

The  members  of  Circle  No.  6  of  the  Woman's  Auxiliary  of 
1920  and  1 92 1  wish  to  express  to  you  their  love  and  sympathy 
in  your  recent  great  sorrow  and  bereavement.  Such  lives  are 
greatly  missed,  but  leave  behind  them  an  inspiration  and  an 
incentive  to  those  coming  after,  to  give  forth  their  noblest  pow- 
ers in  the  channels  of  truth  and  righteousness.  He  lives  with 
us  still  with  an  influence  that  will  continue  in  force  as  long  as 
memory  endures. 

Yours  with  much  love  and  sympathy, 

Etta  F.  Murray, 
Secretary. 


[12.3 


FROM  "OUR  FATHERLESS  ONES" 

The  Annie  Louise  Cottage  was  built  and  furnished  by  Mr. 
G.  W.  Watts  and  named  in  honor  of  his  only  child,  Miss  Annie 
Louise.  The  little  girls,  the  baby  girls,  live  in  that  house  now; 
but  when  it  was  first  built,  when  Miss  Annie  Louise  was  herself 
a  girl,  it  was  the  only  house  we  had  for  girls.  The  dolls  in  the 
house  were  named  Annie  Louise;  when  these  little  ladies  put 
on  long  dresses  and  played  grown-up,  they  called  themselves 
Annie  Louise.  On  the  night  of  Miss  Annie  Louise's  marriage 
in  Durham,  the  Annie  Louise  Cottage  was  made  to  look  very 
beautiful.  A  light  was  hung  in  every  Vv'indow,  and  just  at  the 
time  of  the  ceremony  prayer  service  was  held  by  the  little  people 
here.  Then  the  little  girls  played  getting  married  and  being 
Mrs.  Hill.  When  a  son  was  born  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hill,  Mr. 
Watts,  the  grandfather  of  the  baby,  made  a  handsome  dona- 
tion to  the  home,  and  the  father  of  the  little  boy  has  since  kept 
up  this  generous  birthday  donation.  The  little  girls  felt  almost 
that  this  baby,  George  Watts  Hill,  belonged  to  them.  They 
were  told  if  they  always  remembered  his  birthday  and  reminded 
the  superintendent  a  few  days  before,  they  might  have  a  holiday 
in  their  house.  The  twenty-seventh  of  October  is  the  birthday, 
and  it  came  on  Sunday  this  time,  but  the  little  girls  celebrated 
on  Monday.  They  had  a  glorious  time  all  day,  and  were  allowed 
to  decorate  the  playroom  for  the  party.  The  guests  were  aston- 
ished when  they  came  in  the  evening  and  found  that  the  decorat- 
ing in  the  playroom  had  been  by  the  little  girls  themselves.  It 
was  a  literal  bower  of  autumn  leaves.  How  the  little  hands  had 
reached  so  high  and  had  succeeded  in  making  the  beautiful 
branches  stay  there  was  a  marvel  to  every  one.  The  sitting- 
room  had  been  converted  into  a  dining-room,  but  wee  ladies 


rn  IT  rirl      ^r-fe,^ 


u 


hadn't  had  one  peep  into  it.  When  the  door  was  thrown  open 
and  they  were  ushered  in,  it  was  all  so  beautiful  they  couldn't 
restrain  their  exclamations.  Autumn  leaves  had  been  used  by 
older  hands  for  decorations  in  there.  The  room  was  lighted  with 
candles.  In  the  center  of  the  room  were  two  large  round  tables, 
and  the  rest  of  the  space  was  filled  with  smaller  tables.  A  color- 
scheme  was  carried  out  in  red  and  yellow.  Unless  you  have 
tried  it,  you  can't  think  how  beautiful  this  can  be  made  with 
autumn  leaves.  The  first  course  consisted  of  chicken  cro- 
quettes, beaten  biscuit,  cheese  sandwiches,  pickle,  and  coffee; 
for  the  second,  fruit,  salad,  and  cake  were  served.  At  each  place 
were  dainty  souvenirs  made  of  gilded  nut  shells  tied  with  red 
ribbon.  When  these  were  opened  a  picture  of  little  Watts  was 
found.  Nothing  throughout  the  whole  day  pleased  the  little 
girls  so  thoroughly.  It  was  a  happy  party  of  children.  We  said 
an  early  good  night,  remembering  that  they  never  keep  late 
hours.  The  small  boys  at  Synod's  Cottage  wished  that  Synod 
had  a  birthday. 


i:'23:i 


BOARD  OF  REGENTS,  BARIUM  SPRINGS,  N.  C. 

October  1 1,  1921. 

The  Board  of  Regents,  in  session  at  Barium  Springs,  October 
II,  1 92 1,  wish  to  record  our  appreciation  of  the  late  George  W. 
Watts,  of  Durham.  We  were  deeply  grieved  at  his  death,  and 
wish  to  bear  testimony  to  the  interest  he  manifested  in  the  Or- 
phanage and  the  great  value  that  his  life  was  to  this  institution. 
The  interest  he  manifested  was  a  great  inspiration  to  all  those 
who  love  the  home  and  recognize  its  value  to  the  fatherless  chil- 
dren of  our  State. 

We  wish  to  express  to  his  wife  and  daughter  our  deepest  and 
most  heartfelt  sympathy,  and  pray  that  the  Father  of  mercies 
and  the  God  of  all  comfort  will  be  their  stay. 

The  interest  he  manifested  in  the  home,  the  gifts  that  he 
made  during  his  lifetime,  and  the  legacy  he  left  in  his  will  will 
continue  to  bear  fruit  in  the  lives  of  those  who  have  been  de- 
prived of  parental  care. 

Signed  by  the  Board  of  Regents, 

R.  A.  Lapsley,  Jr.,  President. 
Mrs.  W.  B.  Ramsey,  Secretary. 


L'243 


RESOLUTIONS  OF  THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES  OF 
DAVIDSON  COLLEGE 

George  Washington  Watts 

1851-1921 

The  Board  of  Trustees  of  Davidson  College  desires  to  place 
upon  its  record  its  appreciation  of  George  Washington  Watts, 
who  entered  into  richly  earned  rest  at  Durham,  North  Carolina, 
March  7,  1921. 

Reared  in  a  Christian  home,  receiving  the  stamp  of  academic 
culture  in  his  training,  Mr.  Watts  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
problems  of  his  business  career,  upon  which  he  early  entered, 
the  powers  of  a  well-trained  mind,  a  balanced  judgment,  and 
thoroughgoing  integrity  that  won  for  him  a  commanding  posi- 
tion among  those  who  have  directed  the  business  interests  of 
the  South  in  its  most  formative  and  critical  period. 

From  the  beginning  of  his  career  Mr.  Watts  was  inspired  by 
a  spirit  of  service  that  led  him  to  devote  his  talents  and  tre- 
mendous energy  to  the  upbuilding  of  the  city  of  his  adoption. 
And  he  left  upon  its  every  civic  interest  the  stamp  of  his  per- 
sonality. 

The  center  of  his  interests,  however,  was  his  church.  Its 
noble  edifice  and  well-equipped  Sunday-school  building  are  a 
monument  to  his  generosity.  But  George  Watts's  life  of  service 
as  Sunday-school  teacher,  superintendent,  lay  worker,  ruling 
elder,  humble  Christian  gentleman  was  his  best  and  most  last- 
ing gift  to  his  church  and  community. 

Such  a  life  could  not  be  confined  to  the  environment  of  city 
or  local  congregation,  and  his  constructive  brain  grasped  the 


vital  importance  of  missions  and  education  to  the  extension  of 
the  kingdom  of  God. 

He  gave  with  unstinted  generosity,  not  only  his  money,  but 
his  best  thought,  to  the  most  remote  mission  fields,  and  thou- 
sands whom  he  never  saw  welcomed  him  on  the  other  side  as 
God's  instrument  in  their  redemption. 

It  was,  however,  in  the  field  of  education  that  he  recognized 
the  largest  opportunities  for  constructive  service.  And  as 
Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Union  Theological  Sem- 
inary he  was  recognized  as  the  guiding  spirit  in  the  plans  that 
have  placed  that  institution  in  the  foremost  rank  among  Amer- 
ican seminaries. 

Grasping  the  vital  relation  of  Christian  colleges  to  the  king- 
dom of  God,  Mr.  Watts  devoted  his  fortune  to  princely  gifts  and 
his  time  and  energy  to  the  schools  and  colleges  of  the  church. 
He  recognized  that  Davidson  College  was  an  opportunity  for 
exceptional  service  to  the  whole  church,  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  and  as  trustee,  benefactor,  and  loyal  friend  he  gave 
to  the  College  his  very  best. 

In  placing  upon  record  their  appreciation  of  Mr.  Watts,  the 
Trustees  would  accept  as  their  own  the  tribute  paid  by  one  of 
the  College's  most  distinguished  alumni:  "No  other  preemi- 
nently successful  man  of  our  time  has  exemplified  more  strik- 
ingly than  Mr.  Watts  the  right  combination  of  business  capacity 
and  Christian  character.  He  was,  indeed,  a  remarkable  busi- 
ness man;  but  the  beautiful  thing  is  that  his  nature  was  not 
dwarfed  but  enlarged  by  his  devotion  to  business.  The  key  to 
his  character  was  his  religion;  the  core  of  his  character  was  his 
faith  in  God." 


ni26] 


RESOLUTION  ON  THE  DEATH  OF  MR.  GEORGE  W. 
WATTS,  ADOPTED  AT  A  MEETING  OF  THE  BOARD 
OF  TRUSTEES  OF  AGNES  SCOTT  COLLEGE,  HELD 
MARCH   15 

The  Trustees  of  Agnes  Scott  College  have  learned  with  sor- 
row of  the  death  of  Mr.  George  W.  Watts,  and  they  wish  to 
express  their  appreciation  of  the  splendid  service  which  he  ren- 
dered to  the  causes  of  Christian  education  and  spreading  the 
Gospel  throughout  the  world.  The  Trustees  would  especially 
record  with  gratitude  his  friendly  interest  in  Agnes  Scott  Col- 
lege and  his  financial  help  in  one  of  the  crises  of  our  history. 
Their  sincerest  sympathy  is  hereby  extended  to  his  loved  ones 
in  this  hour  of  bereavement. 

F.  H.  Gaines, 
Secretary  of  Board. 


Il'^y] 


RESOLUTIONS  ADOPTED  BY  THE  MEDICAL  AND 
SURGICAL  STAFF  OF  WATTS  HOSPITAL 

Whereas  death  has  claimed  George  Washington  Watts,  an 
eminent  citizen  of  Durham  whose  noble  benefaction  has  made 
it  possible  to  have  in  this  community  the  splendid  institution 
for  the  relief  of  suffering  which  bears  his  name,  now,  therefore, 
be  it  resolved  that  in  his  death 

First.  The  Medical  and  Surgical  Staff  of  Watts  Hospital 
has  sustained  the  loss  of  a  generous  friend  who  was  ever  ready 
to  cooperate  with  them  in  furthering  the  efficiency  of  their 
labors. 

Second.  The  City  of  Durham  and  the  State  of  North  Caro- 
lina have  lost  a  citizen  whose  heart  was  ever  responsive  to  the 
call  of  suffering  and  stricken  humanity  from  all  the  walks  of  life. 

Third.  That  while  we  extend  our  sympathy  to  his  family  in 
their  sorrow,  yet  we  rejoice  in  the  heritage  of  the  memory  of  a 
life  of  beautiful  deeds  which  he  has  bequeathed  them. 

Fourth.  That  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  be  spread  on  our 
records  and  a  copy  be  forwarded  to  his  family. 

Robert  L.  Felts, 
B.  U.  Brooks, 
N.  D.  Bitting, 

Co7nniittee. 


i:.283 


"The  Lord  gave  and  the  Lord  hath  taken  away:  blessed  be  the  name 
of  the  Lord" 

FROM  THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES 
OF  WATTS  HOSPITAL 

On  the  death  of  Mr.  George  Washington  Watts 

It  is  with  a  sense  of  personal  loss  and  deep  grief  that  we,  the 
Board  of  Trustees  of  Watts  Hospital,  take  official  cognizance 
of  the  death  of  the  President  of  the  Board,  Mr.  George  Wash- 
ington Watts.  We  esteem  it,  however,  a  sacred  duty  and  a 
great  privilege  to  bear  testimony  at  this  sad  moment  to  his 
noble  life  and  his  unselfish  service  to  his  fellow-men  as  revealed 
in  his  activity  on  our  Board.  For  his  tender  sympathy  with 
his  suffering  fellow-men  and  his  constant,  unostentatious. 
Christian  concern  in  their  behalf,  so  strikingly  evidenced  in  his 
unfailing  interest  in  the  hospital  he  founded  for  their  relief,  we 
herewith  express  our  unbounded  admiration.  We,  likewise, 
pay  sincere  tribute  to  his  benevolent  and  wise  generosity  in 
establishing  and  maintaining  up  to  his  death  the  institution  for 
human  relief  which  will  cause  thousands  through  the  oncoming 
years  to  cherish  his  name  in  loving  esteem  and  tender  gratitude. 
Inspired  by  his  example  and  his  spirit  we  pledge  ourselves 
to  minister  the  trust  he  has  left  to  our  care  with  due  regard  to 
his  wishes  and  in  accord  with  his  high  ideals  as  to  what  the 
Watts  Hospital  should  become. 

We  order  that  a  page  in  our  minute-book  be  inscribed  to  his 
memory  and  that  a  copy  of  this  expression  of  our  sorrow  and 
esteem  be  sent  to  the  bereaved  family,  to  whom  we  extend  our 
deep  sympathy. 

Wm.   H.  Wannamaker, 
John  F.  Wily, 

R.  L.  LiNDSEY, 

T.  B.  Fuller, 

Committee. 


['293 


THE  LADY  BOARD  OF  VISITORS,  WATTS  HOSPITAL 

My  dear  Mrs.  Watts: 

In  the  death  of  Mr.  Watts,  whose  sympathy,  loving-kindness, 
and  generosity  have  contributed  so  largely  to  suffering  human- 
ity in  our  town  and  community,  by  donating  to  us  and  endow- 
ing Watts  Hospital,  each  member  of  the  Lady  Board  of  Visitors 
grieves  with  his  family.  To  the  hospital  his  loss  is  irreparable. 
His  influence  and  personality  inspired  every  one  connected  with 
this  institution  to  do  their  best,  and  only  by  endeavoring  to  live 
up  to  his  standards  can  those  in  authority  attain  the  ideals  upon 
which  he  had  planned  its  future.  Our  aim  will  be  to  strive  to 
accomplish  what  he  would  have  us  do. 

The  Board  of  Lady  Visitors  wishes  to  express  to  you  their 
loving  sympathy  in  this  bereavement  and  a  desire  to  serve. 
May  God's  blessing  abide  with  you  always! 

April   10. 

LiDA  D.  Angier, 
Margaret  C.  Carr, 
Emily  N.  Michie. 


i:'3o] 


RESOLUTIONS  OF  THE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS  OF 
THE  DURHAM  YOUNG  MEN'S  CHRISTIAN  ASSO- 
CIATION ON  THE  DEATH  OF  MR.  GEORGE  W. 
WATTS,  WHO  WAS  A  TRUSTEE  AND  CHAIRMAN  OF 
THE  ADVISORY  BOARD  OF  THE  ASSOCIATION 

Whereas,  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  of  the  City 
of  Durham,  North  Carolina,  regrets  the  death  and  loss  of  its 
devoted  friend  Mr.  George  W.  Watts,  a  citizen  whose  life  and 
activities  in  our  midst  were  such  as  to  reflect  the  highest  ideals 
of  Christian  citizenship,  and 

Whereas,  this  institution,  since  its  creation,  has  always  had 
the  whole-hearted  support  of  Mr.  Watts,  morally,  spiritually, 
and  financially,  and 

Whereas,  as  an  evidence  of  his  belief  in  the  perpetuation  of 
the  work,  needs,  and  usefulness  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association  in  the  City  of  Durham  he  bequeathed  to  this  in- 
stitution the  sum  of  |io,ooo. 

Therefore  be  it  Resolved,  that  in  memory  of  the  support  and 
service  rendered  by  Mr.  Watts  to  this  Association,  reflecting  at 
all  times  his  high  ideals  of  Christian  manhood,  this  Association 
create  a  fund  to  be  known  as  The  George  W.  Watts  Endow- 
ment, to  consist  of  the  bequest  made  by  Mr.  Watts,  the  same  to 
remain  intact  and  the  interest  only  to  be  applied  to  the  mainte- 
nance charges  of  the  Association. 

G.  Frank  Warner, 
General  Secretary. 


C'3.] 


YOUNG  WOMEN'S  CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATION 
Durham,  N.  C. 


March  21,  1921, 


Mrs.  Geo.  W.  Watts, 
Durham,  N.  C. 


My  dear  Mrs.  Watts: 

At  a  recent  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Young 
Women's  Christian  Association  I  was  requested  to  express  to 
you  their  sympathy  in  your  great  bereavement. 

To  their  individual  sorrow  is  added  a  deep  sense  of  the  col- 
lective loss  which  they  are  sharing  with  the  city's  various  or- 
ganizations; it  will  be  hard,  indeed,  to  fill  the  place  of  a  man 
like  Mr.  Watts,  who,  with  highest  ideals  for  his  community's 
good,  actually  identified  himself  with  every  movement  tending 
to  the  converting  of  those  ideals  into  practicalities,  and  who 
consistently  furnished  an  example  of  devoted,  conscientious 
citizenship. 

With  sincere  appreciation  of  his  splendid  life,  and  with  a 
lasting  sense  of  the  irreparable  loss  caused  by  his  death,  I  am. 
Sincerely  yours, 

Mrs.  J.  E.  Driscoll, 
Recording  Secretary. 


C'32:i 


RESOLUTIONS 

CIVIC  AND  BUSINESS 


ii 


O       O 


u 


'He  that  handleth  a  matter  wisely  shall  find  good" 


RESOLUTION  OF  DURHAM  CHAMBER  OF 
COMMERCE 

'HE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS  of  the  Durham 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  having  heard  with  great 
sorrow  of  the  death  of  our  former  fellow- 
member  Mr.  George  W.  Watts,  and  desiring  to 
place  upon  record  a  testimonial  of  our  regard 
for  him,  do  now  in  regular  session  assembled: 

Resolve,  that  in  the  death  of  Mr.  Watts  we  feel  that  Durham 
has  lost  one  of  its  most  loyal  and  useful  citizens,  whose  life  was 
inspired  by  the  highest  ideals  of  public  duty,  personal  honor, 
and  civic  righteousness.  His  splendid  concept  of  good  citizen- 
ship, purity  in  all  walks  of  life,  and  devotion  to  the  cause  of 
humanity  will  always  remain  as  a  memorial  to  his  well  spent 
life  and  as  an  inspiration  to  those  who  were  privileged  to  know 
him. 

We  desire  also  to  give  expression  to  the  indebtedness  we  feel 
as  a  community  for  his  many  wise,  liberal,  and  beneficent  deeds 
and  to  our  admiration  of  the  high  standards  of  business,  social, 
and  religious  conduct  that  characterized  his  entire  life.  To  us 
he  exemplified  the  best  type  of  Christian  gentleman.  Our  asso- 
ciation with  him  as  a  member  of  this  Board  was  a  forceful  in- 
fluence, inspiring  us  to  endeavor  to  perpetuate  in  this  com- 
munity the  noble  and  worthy  things  for  which  his  life  was  spent. 
Resolved  further,  that  a  copy  of  this  resolution  be  sent  to 
the  family  of  Mr.  Watts. 


THE  BOARD  OF  ALDERMEN 

At  a  regular  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Aldermen,  the  under- 
signed committee  was  appointed  to  draft  a  Memorial  express- 
ing the  great  loss  the  City  has  sustained  in  the  death  of  George 
W.  Watts,  who  for  many  years  was  a  distinguished  and  honored 
citizen  of  Durham  and  a  Trustee  of  the  Sinking  Fund  which 
from  year  to  year  had  been  created  to  retire  the  bonded  indebt- 
edness of  the  City : 

Resolved,  that  in  the  passing  of  this  distinguished  man  from 
the  business,  social,  and  religious  activities  of  life  to  the  higher 
life  above,  Durham  has  sustained  an  irreparable  loss.  Mr. 
Watts  was  indeed  an  humble  follower  of  his  Master,  and  used 
the  wealth  which  his  business  sagacity,  honesty,  and  integrity 
had  gained  for  him  to  advance  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth. 
His  charities  were  numerous  and  were  directed  through  those 
channels  which  his  fine  spirituality  and  judgment  suggested 
would  accomplish  the  most  good.  Thus  he  builded  and  endowed 
the  magnificent  Watts  Hospital,  which  will  live  on  through  the 
ages,  a  memorial  to  his  generosity  and  sympathy  for  suffering 
humanity.  Directed  by  the  same  spirituality,  he  provided  a 
fund  which  would  be  perpetually  used  to  carry  forward  mission 
work  in  difi'erent  parts  of  the  world,  in  order  that  the  heathen 
may  learn  of  that  religion  Vv'hich  tells  us  of  the  glorious  resur- 
rection prepared  for  those  who  love  the  Lord. 

Resolved,  that  a  copy  of  this  Memorial  be  spread  upon  the 
minutes  of  this  meeting,  a  copy  be  sent  to  the  family,  expressing 
the  sympathy  of  the  Board,  and  one  to  the  newspapers  of  the 
city  for  publication. 

Durham,  N.  C,  March  17,  1921. 

John  M.  Manning, 
John  T.  Salmon, 
'W.  T.  Minor, 

Committee. 


^36] 


DURHAM  LODGE,  B.  P.  O.  E.  No.  568 

Mrs.  George  W.  Watts, 
Durham,  N.  C. 

Dear  Madam: 

At  a  recent  meeting  of  Durham  Lodge  of  the  Benevolent  and 
Protective  Order  of  Elks  the  undersigned  committee  was  di- 
rected to  convey  to  you  in  this  form  the  sentiments  of  the  Lodge 
upon  the  recent  death  of  your  husband. 

The  members  of  this  organization  feel  that  in  the  death  of 
Mr.  Watts  they  and  the  entire  community  have  lost  a  friend, 
a  man  whose  whole  life  was  inspired  by  feelings  of  benevolence 
and  love  for  his  fellow-beings.  His  long  and  useful  life  in  our 
community  has  always  been  an  inspiration  to  the  men  of  our 
fraternity.  We  regarded  him  as  an  ideal  citizen,  and  in  his 
death  we  wish  to  tender  you  our  sincere  sympathy  and  con- 
dolence. 

The  wise  and  judicious  gifts  which  he  has  made  to  worthy 
organizations  in  the  city  and  elsewhere  are  a  perpetual  memo- 
rial to  the  love  and  tender  regard  he  had  for  humanity. 

As  a  fraternal  organization  we  share  with  you  the  feelings 
of  loss  in  his  death,  and  assure  you  again  of  our  sympathy. 

Very  respectfully, 

W.  G.  Wegener, 
J.  W.  Spransey, 
R.  H.  Sykes, 

Committee. 


PB?] 


BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS,  SEABOARD  AIR  LINE 
RAILWAY  COMPANY 

[copy  OF  resolutions] 
April  21,  1 92 1 

Resolved  that  this  Board  receive  with  profound  sorrow  the 
announcement  of  the  death  of  Mr.  George  W.  Watts,  at  his 
home  in  Durham,  North  Carolina,  on  March  7,  1921. 

Mr.  Watts  was  born  at  Cumberland,  Maryland,  on  August 
18,  1851,  son  of  Gerard  S.  and  Annie  E.  Watts.  He  was  reared 
in  Baltimore,  Maryland,  attending  the  public  schools  in  that 
city  from  1859  to  1868,  and  from  1868  to  1871  he  was  a  student 
of  civil  engineering  in  the  University  of  Virginia.  From  1871 
to  1878  he  was  associated  with  the  tobacco  firm  of  G.  S.  Watts 
&  Co.,  and  later  aided  in  the  organization  and  management  of 
W.  Duke  Sons  &  Co.,  at  Durham,  North  Carolina,  in  which 
company  he  became  a  stock-holder  and  served  as  Secretary  and 
Treasurer.  Mr.  Watts  was  also  interested  in  many  other  enter- 
prises throughout  North  Carolina  and  the  South. 

Mr.  Watts  was  elected  a  director  of  the  Seaboard  Air  Line 
Railway  on  March  26,  1902,  and  served  the  Company  continu- 
ously in  the  capacity  of  director  for  nineteen  years. 

His  breadth  of  view,  clearness  of  perception,  accuracy  of 
judgment,  and  above  all  his  correctness  of  intention  and  fine 
sense  of  honor,  commanded  confidence  and  gave  force  and  ef- 
fectiveness to  his  counsel  and  direction. 

He  was  modest  in  his  estimate  of  his  own  powers  without 
being  distrustful  of  them,  generous  in  his  appreciation  of  his 
associates,  and  just  in  all  his  relations  with  them. 

Mr.  Watts  was  one  of  the  leading  philanthropists  of  the 
[•38] 


country,  and  contributed  very  largely  to  religious  work  both  in 
this  country  and  abroad. 

On  behalf  of  the  stock-holders,  whose  interests  he  well  served, 
and  of  the  members  of  this  Board,  who  greatly  admired  him, 
we  now  place  on  our  records  our  regret  at  the  loss  of  Mr.  Watts, 
and  offer  to  his  bereaved  family  our  sincere  sympathy. 

Resolved,  that  this  Memorial  be  spread  upon  the  minutes 
of  the  Board  and  that  a  copy  be  sent  to  Mr.  Watts's  family. 


I  hereby  certify  that  the  foregoing  is  a  true  and  correct  copy 
of  resolutions  adopted  by  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Sea- 
board Air  Line  Railway  Company  at  a  meeting  held  at  New 
York,  N.  Y.,  on  April  21,  1921. 

Robert  L.  Nutt, 

Secretary. 


C'BQ] 


EXTRACT  FROM  MINUTES  OF  MEETING  OF  BOARD 

OF  DIRECTORS  OF  VIRGINIA-CAROLINA 

CHEMICAL  COMPANY,  MAY  19,  1921 

The  Board  of  Directors  of  Virginia-Carolina  Chemical  Com- 
pany sorrowfully  here  records  the  death  of  Mr.  George  W. 
Watts,  a  member  of  this  Board  since  1890. 

Mr.  Watts  was  a  successful  man  of  business  and  a  distin- 
guished citizen  of  the  State  of  North  Carolina. 

He  was  born  in  Maryland  and  his  early  training  was  had 
among  old-time  Baltimore  merchants. 

When  a  young  man  he  moved  to  North  Carolina,  where  his 
talents  and  public  spirit  found  scope  in  the  development  of  the 
resources  of  his  adopted  State  and  Section  and  in  augmenting 
the  welfare  of  its  citizens.  Moreover,  Mr.  Watts  was  faithful 
to  the  tenets  of  his  church  and  most  generous  in  the  practice  of 
good  works. 

His  relations  to  this  Company  were  marked  by  a  high  sense 
of  duty,  and  he  was  a  good  and  loyal  friend  of  our  late  Presi- 
dent, Mr.  Samuel  T.  Morgan,  for  many  years. 

Mr.  Watts's  death  deprives  us  of  a  friendly  personality  and 
of  a  capable  associate. 

C.  T.  Wilson,  President. 
S.  D.  Crenshaw,  Secretary. 


I '40-2 


REPUBLIC  IRON  &  STEEL  COMPANY 

IN  MEMORY  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON  WATTS 

We,  the  Associate  Members  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the 
RepubHc  Iron  &  Steel  Company,  have  assembled  in  special  ses- 
sion, this  1 6th  day  of  March,  1921,  to  acknowledge  and  make 
of  record  the  high  personal  character  and  business  ability  of  our 
late  friend  and  associate,  George  W.  Watts,  and  to  express  our 
sense  of  deep  regret  over  the  loss  of  the  personal  association 
we  have  sustained  through  his  death. 

Our  co-worker  became  a  Director  of  this  Company  in  the 
year  1918  and  served  us  continuously  and  faithfully  in  that 
capacity  to  the  time  of  his  death.  His  fidelity  to  duty  was  char- 
acterized by  personal  sacrifice;  as  a  counselor  he  was  cautious 
and  prudent,  and  clear-sighted  to  a  degree.  As  a  friend  he  was 
generous  and  kind-hearted.  In  his  death  the  Company  loses 
the  benefit  of  his  broad  business  experience  and  initiative.  In 
recognition  of  his  services,  business  attainments,  and  of  his 
personal  friendship  we  do  hereby 

Resolve,  that  a  page  on  the  minutes  of  the  Board  of  Directors 
be  set  apart  for  the  enrolment  of  this  testimonial. 

We  do  further  Resolve,  that  to  the  wife  and  daughter  of  our 
departed  friend  we  tender  our  deepest  sympathy,  and  beg  to 
express  the  hope  that  their  great  grief  may  be  lightened  to  some 
degree  by  this  earnest  expression  of  our  high  regard  for  the 
husband  and  father  whom  they  have  lost. 

John  Topping, 

Chairvian. 

Richard  Laws,  Jr., 

Secretary. 


[■4i: 


RESOLUTIONS  PASSED  BY  THE  BOARD  OF 

DIRECTORS  OF  THE  FIDELITY  BANK, 

DURHAM,  NORTH  CAROLINA 

Whereas,  the  death  of  Mr.  George  W.  Watts  has  removed  from 
our  Board  one  of  its  most  efficient  and  valued  members,  one 
who  for  many  years  has  aided  the  Bank  by  his  counsel,  his  finan- 
cial aid,  and  by  his  loyal  and  untiring  efforts  to  build  up  this 
institution  in  every  way. 

Therefore,  he  it  Resolved:  That  we  deplore  the  loss  of  Mr. 
Watts  to  this  Board  on  account  of  his  prudent  counsel,  his  wide- 
spread influence,  and  his  foresight  and  skill  as  a  banker.  We 
mourn  the  loss  of  a  companion  who  was  always  bright  and 
cheerful,  a  friendly  man,  who  did  not  in  the  turmoil  and  stress 
of  business  relations  forget  those  finer  feelings  of  esteem  and 
respect  by  which  he  was  held  by  his  associates,  and  which  he 
ever  tendered  to  them,  thereby  maintaining  a  tie  that  has 
cemented  the  Directors  of  this  Bank  together  by  a  spirit  of 
cooperation  that  has  been  of  great  value  to  the  institution; 

Resolved  further:  That  we  deplore  the  death  of  Mr.  Watts 
as  removing  from  this  community  one  of  its  finest  citizens,  an 
example  of  high  Christian  character,  a  man  of  lofty  ideals  and 
of  wide-spread  benevolences,  always  true  to  the  best  in  civic 
and  industrial  life,  and  whose  consistent  honesty  and  integrity 
has  adorned  a  long  life  of  usefulness  in  our  city.  We  unani- 
mously adopt  these  resolutions  as  an  expression  of  our  loss,  and 
direct  that  a  copy  be  spread  on  the  records  of  this  Bank,  and  a 
copy  be  furnished  the  bereaved  family  with  our  sincere  sym- 
pathy to  them  in  their  affliction. 

T.  B.  Fuller, 
Jno.  F.  Wily, 
Jones  Fuller, 
E.  K.  PowE. 


i:'42  3 


BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS,  DURHAM  LOAN  & 
TRUST  COMPANY 

[Copy  of  Resolutions] 

Resolved,  that  this  Board  receives  with  profound  sorrow  the 
announcement  of  the  death  of  Mr.  George  W.  Watts,  at  his 
home  in  Durham,  North  CaroHna,  on  March  7,  1921. 

Mr.  Watts  was  elected  a  Director  of  Durham  Loan  &  Trust 
Company  at  the  organization  of  the  Company  in  the  year  1904, 
and  served  continuously  in  that  capacity  until  his  death. 

While  serving  as  a  Director  of  Durham  Loan  &  Trust  Com- 
pany he  brought  to  that  institution  the  benefit  of  his  great  ex- 
perience and  accurate  judgment  in  business  affairs,  as  well  as 
his  uprightness  of  character,  fairness  of  dealing,  and  far-seeing 
vision. 

Mr.  Watts  was  also  at  all  times  the  friend  who  did  so  much 
to  create  the  feeling  of  unity  and  mutual  confidence  that  has 
been  so  invaluable  to  the  life  of  this  institution. 

On  behalf  of  the  stock-holders,  whose  interests  he  well  served, 
and  of  the  members  of  this  Board,  we  now  place  on  our  records 
our  regret  at  the  loss  of  Mr.  Watts,  and  offer  to  the  bereaved 
family  our  sincere  sympathy. 

Resolved,  that  this  memorial  be  spread  upon  the  minutes  of 
the  Board  and  that  a  copy  be  sent  to  Mr.  Watts's  family. 

(Signed)     T.  C.  Worth, 

E.  A.  Seeman, 

F.  L.  Fuller,  Jr. 


i:'43i 


IN  MEMORY  OF  GEORGE  WASHINGTON  WATTS 
[Resolutions  of  Respect] 

A  man's  faith  in  small  things  often  demonstrates  his  sound 
wisdom  and  keen  intellect.  This  was  fully  manifested  in  the 
life  and  character  of  George  Washington  Watts.  With  him 
thrift  and  saving  were  virtues  not  to  be  despised  but  fondly 
cultivated  and  nurtured.  The  Home  Savings  Bank  was  cre- 
ated under  and  by  virtue  of  the  laws  of  the  State  of  North  Caro- 
lina in  1903,  with  its  office  and  place  of  business  in  the  City  of 
Durham,  and  Mr.  George  W.  Watts  became  its  President  and 
was  its  controlling  stock-holder  at  the  time  its  doors  were 
opened  to  the  public. 

The  Bank  at  that  time  seemed  to  be  a  small  institution  in 
comparison  with  the  large  and  modern  banking  institutions, 
and  it  was  at  that  time  that  Mr.  Watts  had  begun  to  reah  .- 
that  "Great  oaks  from  little  acorns  grow."  While  Mr.  Watts 
was  the  owner  of  the  majority  shares  of  the  stock  of  the  Home 
Savings  Bank,  he  did  not  seek  to  dominate  its  affairs  and  alone 
fix  its  policies.  He  was  always  desirous  that  the  small  stock- 
holders should  attend  the  meetings  and  fully  set  forth  their 
views. 

Mr.  Watts  had  accumulated  a  large  part  of  his  holdings  by 
the  practice  of  the  strictest  thrift.  He  was  eager  to  make 
money,  but  he  was  more  zealous  in  his  determined  efforts  to 
save.  He  felt  that  the  average  man — the  man  who  works  for 
his  daily  bread — ought  to  be  a  saving  man,  and  that  a  bank 
which  thoroughly  encouraged  the  accumulation  of  savings  was 
an  institution  which  could  prove  to  be  a  real  factor  in  the  up- 
building of  the  community  life. 

Mr.  Watts  left  the  details  of  the  management  of  the  Home 
i:'44] 


Savings  Bank  to  others,  though  he  took  a  personal  pride  and 
pleasure  in  attending  the  annual  meeting  of  the  stock-holders 
and  presiding  over  the  frequent  sessions  of  the  Board  of  Direc- 
tors. From  the  founding  of  the  Home  Savings  Bank  until  his 
death  Mr.  Watts  was  the  first  and  only  President  of  said  insti- 
tution. The  establishment  of  this  Bank  but  extended  his  right 
arm  of  helpfulness  and  usefulness  to  people  who  desired  to  help 
themselves. 

It  is  now,  therefore,  Resolved  by  the  Board  of  Directors  and 
the  stock-holders,  by  and  through  the  Special  Committee,  that 
the  Home  Savings  Bank  has  lost  a  valuable  and  experienced 
President  who  always  served  its  best  interests  without  salary 
or  hope  of  pecuniary  reward;  a  director  who  gladly  cooperated 
with  his  fellow-directors  to  determine  the  best  policies  for  the 
institution;  and  a  stock-holder  who  was  unselfish  enough  to 
take  a  personal  pride  in  seeing  the  Bank  grow  as  a  community 
builder  instead  of  a  money  maker. 

It  is  further  ordered  and  directed  that  a  page  of  the  minutes 
of  the  meetings  of  the  stock-holders  and  of  the  Board  of  Di- 
rectors be  set  apart  in  honor  of  the  memory  of  said  George 
Washington  Watts;  that  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  be  spread 
!  full  thereon;  and  that  a  certified  copy  thereof  be  forwarded 
by  the  cashier  of  the  Home  Savings  Bank  to  the  widow  of  our 
beloved  fellow-worker. 

Alphonsus  Cobb, 
d.  w.  sorrell, 
F.  T.  Rollins. 


i:'45: 


RESOLUTIONS  UNANIMOUSLY  PASSED  AT  MEETING 

OF  THE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS  OF  THE  ERWIN 

COTTON  MILLS  COMPANY,  APRIL  25,  1921 

Whereas  our  beloved  Vice-President,  Mr.  George  W.  Watts, 
was  called  to  his  final  reward  on  March  7,  1921, 

Resolved  that  we,  the  Board  of  Directors  of  this  Company, 
go  on  record  at  this  time  in  expressing  our  deep  distress  at  his 
death.  For  nearly  twenty-nine  years,  beginning  with  the  or- 
ganization of  this  Company,  he  served  as  its  Vice-President, 
and  by  his  wise  counsel  and  active  interest,  and  high  ideals 
which  dominated  his  life,  he  was  of  marked  assistance  in  the 
establishment  of  the  policies  of  this  Company  and  in  the  eleva- 
tion of  its  standards,  and  his  advice  was  many  times  sought  by 
the  active  management  of  the  Company  and  found  most  help- 
ful. His  noble  Christian  life  was  an  inspiration  to  the  entire 
community,  and  his  example  did  much  good  among  our  mill 
people.  We  feel  that  this  Company  was  rarely  fortunate  in 
having  him  through  so  many  years  as  an  officer  and  director, 
and  it  was  with  the  deepest  regret,  and  with  a  sense  of  profound 
loss,  both  in  a  personal  and  business  way,  that  we  heard  of  his 
death. 

Resolved  that  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  be  mailed  to  his 
family  and  spread  upon  the  minutes  of  this  meeting. 

B.  N.  Duke,  President. 

W.  A.  Erwin,  Secretary  and  Treasurer. 


['46] 


LOCKE  COTTON  MILLS  COMPANY 

Resolved  by  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Locke  Cotton  Mills 
Company  in  special  meeting  on  this,  the  24th  day  of  June,  1 92 1 , 
a  quorum  being  present,  that  the  members  of  our  Board  feel  a 
deep  personal  loss  in  the  absence  of  our  much  esteemed  and 
valued  former  member  of  this  board,  Mr.  George  W.  Watts, 
who  answered  our  Heavenly  Father's  summons  since  our  last 
meeting.  That  our  Company  in  the  passing  of  our  associate 
has  lost  a  valuable,  sympathetic,  and  ever  cheerful  and  wise 
counselor  from  its  Board  of  Directors  and  in  his  official  capac- 
ity as  Vice-President.  That  we  shall  cherish  his  memory  and 
ever  keep  fresh  the  example  of  his  pure  and  unselfish  character. 
Resolved  that  these  resolutions  be  spread  upon  our  records 
and  a  copy  of  same  be  transmitted  by  our  Secretary  to  his 
widow  and  his  daughter,  Mrs.  John  Sprunt  Hill. 

LOCKE  COTTON  MILLS  COMPANY 

By  Thos.  H.  Webb, 
Secretary  and  Treasurer. 


[-47] 


PEARL  COTTON  MILLS 

Resolved  by  the  Directors  of  the  Pearl  Cotton  Mills  in  meet- 
ing April  25,  1 92 1,  that  in  the  passing  away  of  our  President, 
Mr.  George  W.  Watts,  on  the  7th  of  March,  1921,  our  Cor- 
poration has  lost  its  most  honored  official  head.  Through  all 
the  years  of  his  intimate  connection  with  our  Corporation  we 
have  seen  his  genial  smile  and  felt  his  sympathetic  touch,  and 
his  death  has  brought  the  deepest  sense  of  sorrow  to  our  Board 
of  Directors  and  stock-holders.  The  people  who  serve  these 
mills  and  all  who  live  in  this  community  have  been  blessed  by 
his  unfailing  interest  in,  and  devoted  and  untiring  administra- 
tions through,  the  church  and  Sunday-school,  from  which  he 
never  absented  himself  on  the  afternoon  of  Sundays  when  it 
was  practicable  for  him  to  be  present.  Through  his  teachings 
and  in  the  example  of  his  godly  life  he  cheered  and  blessed  all 
with  whom  he  came  in  contact,  regardless  of  creed  or  church 
affiliation;  be  it  therefore  further 

Resolved,  that  our  Board  of  Directors,  stock-holders,  and 
associates  of  this  community  shall  deeply  feel  his  loss,  and  ever 
be  blessed  through  loving  memory  of  this  godly  man  and  wise 
counselor. 

Resolved,  that  this  testimony  of  him  be  spread  upon  our 
records  and  a  copy  of  same  be  sent  to  his  bereaved  wife  and 
daughter. 

J.  Harper  Erwin, 
Secretary  and  Treasurer. 


C'48] 


GOLDEN  BELT  MANUFACTURING  COMPANY 

Whereas  Mr.  George  W.  Watts  has  been  for  many  years  con- 
nected with  the  Golden  Belt  Manufacturing  Company  in  the 
capacity  of  Vice-President  and  Director, 

Therefore  he  it  Resolved  that  in  his  death  we  have  lost  one 
of  our  most  respected  and  beloved  Directors,  one  whose  per- 
sonality has  endeared  him  to  us  all,  and  whose  attendance  at 
the  meetings  of  this  Board  has  been  a  source  of  pleasure  and 
benefit  to  us.  We  therefore  extend  our  sympathy  to  his  be- 
reaved family  in  their  affliction  and  spread  these  resolutions  on 
our  minutes  to  perpetuate  our  sorrow  in  his  death. 

T.  B.  Fuller, 
John  F.  Wily, 
Committee. 


C'49] 


FIRST  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 


u 


u 


'He  was  a  good  man,  and  full  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  of  faith' 


1871-1921 
FIRST  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 

Main  and  Roxboro  Streets,  Durham,  N.  C. 

Rev.  David  H.  Scanlon,  Ph.D.,  Minister 

GEORGE  W.  WATTS 
Ruling  Elder  in  this  Church  July  7,  1889,  to  March  7,  1921 

^EW  men  attain  the  life  of  fuller  purpose  as  did 
our  beloved  brother  who  ascended  from  our 
midst,  the  past  week,  to  enter  upon  his  promised 
possession. 

The  Father  trusted  him  with  princely  posses- 
sions because  he  was  a  wise  steward  in  that  he  was  constantly 
sending  them  on  ahead  by  investing  them  in  spiritual  pro- 
ductions. 

But  what  he  was  was  far  greater  than  anything  that  he  ever 
did.  His  largest  possession  was  the  manner  of  his  life — strong, 
gentle,  trustful,  the  soul  of  honor  and  integrity,  the  kind  of  a 
man  that  enjoys  constant  companionship  and  fellowship  with 
Christ,  and  lives  it  out  in  his  daily  life  and  in  all  his  relation- 
ships between  man  and  man. 

Truly,  he  brought  the  faithfulness  of  Christ  to  every  duty 
and  the  tenderness  of  Christ  to  every  relationship. 

He  was  modest  and  simple  in  his  mode  of  living,  and  yet  the 
evidence  of  an  elegant  Christian  gentleman  was  never  lacking. 

[:'53] 


This  church  and  all  its  activities  shall,  for  years  to  come,  show 
the  reflection  of  his  helpful  life  and  service. 

No  child  has  passed  through  this  Sunday-school  without  re- 
membering the  cordial  hand-shake  of  this  prince  among  men, 
and  no  weary  soul  ever  sought  in  vain  the  consolations  of  this 
Great  Heart. 

The  ends  of  the  earth  have  been  blessed  by  his  having  passed 
this  way. 

"God's  finger  touched  him,  and  he  slept." 

"Blessed  are  the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord, — they  rest  from 
their  labours,  and  their  works  do  follow  them." 


1^34-2 


THERE  IS  NO  DEATH 


J 


f- 


THERE  IS  NO  DEATH 

There  is  no  death — 

They  only  truly  live 

Who  pass  into  the  land  beyond,  and  see 

This  earth  is  but  a  school-preparation 

For  larger  ministry. 

We  call  them  "dead" — 

But  they  look  back  and  smile 

At  our  dead  living  in  the  bonds  of  flesh, 

And  do  rejoice  that  in  so  short  a  while 

Our  soul  will  slip  the  leash. 

There  is  no  death 

To  those  whose  hearts  are  set 

On  higher  things  than  this  life  can  afford; 

How  shall  their  passing  leave  one  least  regret. 

Who  go  to  join  their  Lord? 

— John  Oxenham. 


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